In your late sixties now, perhaps older,
Likely to be alive somewhere, looking in mirrors still,
Or dead, with all things accounted for and put aside.
Decades have passed since I last thought about you
Yet it is only tonight that, finally, I understand you,
Realize how you must have felt
Lying beside me in that long-gone room
Listening to the bark of a dog or the rattle of freight
On the world’s muted periphery.
You were twice my age then,
And half a lifetime beyond my reach;
Such a weight of knowledge separated flesh from flesh
And amongst all that was mutual
Nothing could be equal.
Only tonight do I recognize the bleakness,
The sadness that overwhelmed you
And sent you hurrying back
To the safe harbour of your peers.
It invades me now as I stare at this girl,
So new and vulnerable beside me
And wonder if, half a lifetime hence,
She too might think such thoughts about me.