NaPoWriMo - day nineteen

golden beaches

i still remember those Saturdays

you and i heading downtown

to the library. i remember

spending hours reading,

just sitting and reading.

i always thought you were there

with me, your presence like a weight

on my shoulders.

i realize now that you weren’t there

all those mornings. just the idea of you,

the hope of you. as i was absorbed in my books

learning about lions and tigers and bears,

looking at paintings by Rembrandt and Warhol,

discovering Triceratops and ichthyosaurs,

exploring the worlds of Piper and Asimov and Tolkien,
you were elsewhere.

were you looking at architecture,

Frank Lloyd Wright and his modernist boxes,

or perhaps Shaker furniture

and its minimalist elegance?

were you dreaming of foreign lands –

Indonesia, or the Philippines –

and their golden beaches, their

golden beauties, their golden temples?

if i had gone looking for you,

calling your name in the stacks,

would i have found you?

would I have found you alone?

were you even in the library?

did you leave me in its care

as if it were my second home,

a papered sanctuary where i found

the seeds of my own stories,

where the lie that tells the truth was birthed?

were you outside, sitting in the sun,

dreaming for a moment you were unburdened,

without the responsibility of sons and wife and house?

were you imagining yourself

younger, more tanned, drinking

your espresso while watching young beauties

on some golden beach?

did you go for a walk and explore the courtyard

while drinking your coffee?

did you attempt to strike up conversations

with young women, with your broken English

and your thick, sturdy accent?

did you rely on awkward, boyish charm

and your Netherlandish bluster?

or were you further away?

did you meet up with a lover,

carving away time at the hotel next door

knowing i’d be lost for hours;

did you hold the memory of me in your mind

as you lost yourself in her embrace?

did you tell a librarian to watch over me

(you’d be right back)

as you ran to get something you forgot

knowing I would wait,

would step out of time

while buried in books?

it is a mystery to me,

or a secret, that there should be

this ghost here in my recollection,

a great puzzle i cannot solve.

i wish i had an answer.

i try not to read the story of my life backwards,

to let this memory accrue too much weight.

i don’t want to invent

all the reasons i can’t remember.

all i know now is that

i would still wish for your presence next to me.

i would like to sit in a library with you

and read some books,

to share my thoughts.

to discover yours.

but you are far from me,

you don’t even read my emails.

i have lost track of your story.

i don’t know how it ends,

other than you sitting out in the sun,

tanning on a golden beach.