Fleeting images, wistful feelings
Missing the jolt of love
learning to live without
Facing an end to joy
holding fast to what’s left
First warm sun of spring,
the cherries’ (“loveliest of trees”)
incandescent bloom, baby-skin touch
of magnolia petal, Love’s Labor’s Lost
in the Delacorte’s open air,
Pavarotti and Freni crushing
La Bohème at the Met,
lush light of late summer dusk,
tart-sweet crunch of new-crop
macs, black-and-white hush
of all-night snow, the afterglow
of your gone smile
When the past slips its leash
why keep rehearsing loss?
Because to let it go
is to lose you twice.
