Not since they were young, and now there she sat,
Sipping hibiscus tea he had found in the back
Of the cupboard when he learned she was coming,
Clearing enough of the kitchen table for them
To sit and summarize their separate lives,
The computer off, the keyboard shoved aside,
The dog asleep against the stove he never used,
And the heirloom mantle clock more plangent now
Than yesterday in marking, marking, time.
What was it that kept them connected, they wondered together,
As she tested the pens in the coffee cups next to the notepad.
Six words, she said, aptly described what they had,
Met, sparked, kept one ember alive — 'twas agreed,
A haiku on the equinox and a hand-drawn Christmas card
Had been enough for decades to acknowledge that bond
Was still there, and now there she sat testing his pens.
Could be we've missed each other, she said, and
After a hug on the driveway stones, she was gone.
And likely they had, as quiet returned to the fields,
A man and his dog walking through the high grass,
When the phone in his pocket buzzed on his thigh.
And on the next day, as he spread the tools of his craft
Across the table again, he opened the notepad,
And there in her hand, first lines of a Shakespearean sonnet,
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments...
And maybe, just maybe, they hadn't.
