one prologue

to the indefinite love poem. This is what I was talking about, and in a stage I am not entirely happy with, but it's presentable and I really just want to throw it out there...getting a little giddy. It *has* been a long time since I wrote.

This is complete, as a piece, but it's not the whole story. Will work on that.

a prologue, of sorts

I remember the first time I re-met you

As an adult; it had been three years

Or so. I had fallen in love, gotten engaged,

Since I last saw you, and you had fallen out of it

And lived with your dogs.

You hugged your daughter first, in the kitchen doorway,

And then your son-in-law, who was inwardly

Pleased that you had driven up on your own.

The kids bounced off your knees, running circles, bubbling

"Papaw!" Later we sat on the couch

And you grilled me about this guy,

Brandished pictures of a new dog

On a newer cell phone that wouldn't text.

Somehow we started talking books, comparing Joyce episodes,

And we finished a sentence about being locked in a closet with King

Together and just laughed. Somehow

You are me, forty years older and wary with

The lives scattered behind you - four daughters,

Four wives, each dropped in a different city.

You have a gentle forehead, you never meant

To hurt anyone, but your eyes are large

With cowardice. As are mine. I detect

The same reluctance to move in, settle down,

The same nameless dissatisfaction

With life in myself. You are atoning now,

And moving to Belize, which I will do

When I am sixty as well, but I am terrified

That I will do the same to people I love

In all sincerity. Surely you loved them all.