1

When I lurched like a rumour of want through the networks of plenty,
a me-shaped pang on the lam,
when I ghosted through lives like a headline, a scrap in the updraft,
and my mid-life wreckage was close & for keeps–

when I watched the
birches misting, pale spring
voltage and
not mine, nor mine, nor mine–

then: a
lady laid her touch a-
mong me, gentle thing, for which I stand still
startled, gentle thing and feel the
ache begin again,
the onus of joy.