I am hardly aware
of this heart unless it flickers
like an old bulb, when
with a simple glance
it is aroused from a dim
low ambient thing to a harsh
impossible communion.
It is then too, in the crowded
atrium, in a soft diffused
sight, when lovers break
for their trains perhaps
for a day or a lifetime.
When the doors close,
and the wheels whine,
I become aware. And too,
when rapt by a slow return,
a pause held long
with echoing heels
and burdened arms
some lovers soon embrace,
I become aware.
And sometimes when,
from far behind, a voice
weaves through the mute
cacophony, a lilt known
only to me, and brushes
my ear like an eager lament,
I become aware
That should I turn
and find a stranger there,
should I turn and find
the same familiar loss
disguised as a burgeoning
throng, I should have never
turned at all.
Image: Danielle Rice on Unsplash
Sweet and Bitter Greens 