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.
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.
