i regret that i may never know your child.
not that i ever thought it might be mine.
it’s just that we once shared something beautiful.
i see the photographs of you and your son,
and wonder what stories we would be sharing now
that we both have children. this is a mystery to me –
that we somehow both ended up with unexpected gifts.
to be honest, i never expected to have children.
i never anticipated being married. oddly,
i never imagined being married to you.
*
i had a dream about you last night.
that doesn’t happen often, or more rarely now.
to be accurate, i had a dream and you were in it.
i was sitting on a coffee shop patio watching people –
you were crossing the street and walked by the patio.
you didn’t seem to see me, and i found myself standing up.
perhaps you had forgotten my face – i am older now
with streaks of grey and extra pounds.
admittedly, i always thought i could never be forgotten.
it seems i might never forget you.
*
sometimes i am still afraid i will see you again
and i, being unprepared, will stop and stand stunned
into silence. i am afraid there will be words
unspoken, or worse, spoken and untamed.
or i am afraid there will be no words,
only my body remembering your body
and how our bodies together were beyond words.
i am afraid of the shadow that seeing you
casts on the present, the way it colours the past,
how the images stay with you, like rumours.
