Heather

kitchen light in dark night,

a Christmas package opened,

a picture, black and white,

at least thirty years old and you,

then, but immediate,

your smile and your hair, your face and your perfect body -

big shirt and cutoffs and fat sunglasses

and femininity unpretentious, beauty unconscious -

I fell in love with you, struck dumb at seventeen,

as you stood, exactly as I look at you here in this picture,

young

gorgeous

sexy

and I knew I couldn't be sure you were real

unless I touched you

unless I brushed my hand against yours in shy passing by.

and so I did, quiet, stumbling a little as I came close

pretending not to notice you there, as you smiled at me;

and did you jump just a little, like I did, when I touched you

so lightly

so gently?

I was so quickly sure, but I wonder -

could you have had any idea, all those years ago,

that I'd never know another as I walked through life,

never another as I knew you in that very moment -

so sure, as youth can be, that I'd love you until I died?

and now sent to me from you

still far away but drawing closer every day,

my Peace in a photograph - my heart opened

my love wakened

as fresh as when we were children -

as new,

as moving as it was

the first time I touched your hand.

-

-

24 December 2002