They could have been written
For you: a song and a line,
Separate but reflecting two sides
Of the box that contains your life.

It seems I never forget a face,
Even though I so often fail
To remember the name, the life,
The context that go with it.
Yours is lodged somewhere just below
The surface of my memory,
A moment of your life perfectly
Preserved in teenage amber.

This is the misguided nostalgia
That has long been part of
My lot. Do you suffer the same
When you remember all of
Those fleeting lives you half lived,
Even though you know now
That they were not for you?

And with that, you inevitably
Become a metaphor for me,
As do all of my semi mysterious
Muses. Still, I find myself hoping
That what you really are now
Is, at last, no more and no less
Than yourself.

All this on the strength of
One magazine cover: perhaps
I have not grown up as much
As I thought. Still, I am
Happy at last, nostalgia finally
Bringing me a smile.

My wish for you, then, from
So many miles, years, away,
Is that your memories do the same
For you, present changing the past
From regret to gratitude
As the you that was never you
Disappears over the horizon.

10/29/2019

Posted on 12/21/2019
Copyright © 2024 Richard Vince