a tight spot in my chest
aches from the inside out
I want to
rock my heart
sing it a lullaby

revelations slip out
roused from dark places
deep hurt
flash frozen at eighteen
unthawed after fifty years in
cold storage
singed by freezer burn

past bliss
squints in the bright light of today
losing definition
more chimera than
substance

a whiff of his cologne
provokes an intimate connection
did we breathe the same air
share the same bed
touch skin to skin
or was it all
illusion

bodies
changed with age and wear
connect
snap together with the strength of
opposite polarities
he startled by new feelings
me saddened by the irretrievable

serendipity joins two bare wires which
spark as eyes meet in
air charged with expectation

selves are turned inside out
frayed inner seams exposed
mine more than his
healing and disappointment are
stitched together in a
bitter-sweet quilt

my higher power watches
seeing if I can find my way
force myself into real choices
not hypotheticals

every desire is coated with the
plain truth of distance
age
health
lives rooted in different soils

old obsessions are defused
left lifeless on the floor
swept away by the stiff broom of
common sense

new understandings of the past are
shared
separate lives
filled with choices
some good
some lousy
thankful we didn’t visit those choices
on each other
we never divorced each other
a gift in and of itself
never fought over money or children
never nagged
never closed our ears

can we accept it was all meant to be
exactly as it occurred
paths ordained to diverge
amid pain and misunderstanding
predestined now to intertwine
just long enough to
uncover buried secrets

we part with a body memory that
no one else will share or
understand

our futures turn
practical
more in keeping with our
current lives
but this reunion
this unexpected reconciliation
lingers to sweetly
flavor reality