I look at your picture
arrived suddenly
some unexpected Christmas card
how wind teases the fabric
of your life
so gray
hair escapes
your face
your eyes
wandering a bit
lips pressed together
against what troubles me
to remember
from our brief reunion
days of homelessness
when you carried a mattress
through the tony streets
to your newly acquired walk up
finally finding a steady job
your long travels
between two cities
and telling me how
you wanted to be
in the same town
the same country
as your children
and yet how you pretended
their different mothers
weren’t left
to pick up pieces
three quarters of a century painted now
onto your cheekbones
lodged in the square of your jaw
like forgotten landscapes
until you go to that gallery
and spot the one canvas
on the far wall
where we’re splattered across the jagged crags
jutting over the cliff before we slid
into the ocean
waves
lap lapping until
they dissolved even the wanting
that once fueled our days
now
you are a stranger
grown old even though
you’ve dressed in holiday red
shirt stretched thin
against the gale
I’m stuck in the moment
trying to find us
stepping back
backward
into that studio
apartment grown warm
with our bodies
until cold wraps my shoulders
and I’m left
again with what’s here
beneath my thumb
bereft in front of
your unknown face.
