AN OLD MEMORY BECOMES SUDDENLY NEW
AN OLD MEMORY BECOMES SUDDENLY NEW
I seem to be
writing many a poem
for you now,
years after we are over,
more poems
than
I wrote for you
when we shined
savage and bright
and hidden
for four too short
months.
I am married now,
happily so,
and now know
the risks you must
have taken
all those times
when hotel rooms
and distant pubs
were are home.
“I love my husband,”
you would say, “but
there are different kinds
of love.”
And yes there are.
And yes, I love my wife,
with the only love
I know.
I would never
run the risks you ran.
The loss of my wife
would end me,
end me
like I never existed.
I would not even be
a forgotten
memory.
You ran the risk
of losing your husband
for me,
for
me.
I believe you now
when you told me
you loved me.
I believe you
now,
and now,
now
I can understand
why you needed
to end
us.
I understand
that,
but still fail
to understand
why every woman I see
with hair
the red
of yours
sets freezing fire
running through the veins
of my soul.
Edward Lee