Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Hard and Fast

The District and Circle
Are filled with prepubescents tonight –
Awkward, oblivious & nervous
In their youth.

And am I not a little envious?

Well,
Happiness is fleeting,
Unless it comes
Once in a while.

I’ve envied passers-by more
When they were with friends
Than when they were with lovers.

Your lover’s not my lover
After all.
Though she may share the same body
As mine once did,
Her face is somehow different.
And mine is waiting behind some other visage now –
By good grace, I hope,
Less mercurial than before.

There’s a reliability –
Sweet Reliability! –
In the laughter that has no other requirement
Than that you
(and it could only have been you)
Said that:
When people value not
That you have been funny,
But that you have been
You.

These friends I see,
Unknowingly across from me,
May not last,
But their memories will endure –
Through thick and thin,
Sickness and health,
Richer and poorer –

Hard and fast.