I reread your letter to her for the second time tonight.
The letter (typed carefully and broken up into separate dates)
is two years old; seven pages long and neatly folded into an envelope
upon which you've typed that Joseph Conrad quote about youth and lost
idealism.
The letter has now been mailed to me.
With this history, you hope, maybe
I'll finally understand:
"There's this 19-year-old back at home who curls up against me
when I allow her to
but all I really want is for you to hold me once, because I believe in
you."
At 27, I am this year's model, your new 19-year-old.
Ready and willing and curling; allowing, closing my eyes, turning my back
and trying to walk out but moving around and around at the sound of your
voice.
"I'm OK," I said that last night we spent together in bed
(It it was the third time you'd asked,
my first two replies-"I'm fine"-still resting between us)
"There's a big difference between OK and fine," you whispered
and twisted your fingers through my hair.
I once mailed you my own letter,
eight pages long, handwritten and explaining
how clearly I now see those differences.
and in the note you sent back (14 days later-three typed pages)
you wonder why we crossed the line between friends and lovers;
you try to trace back to how we arrived here, at this unknown place:
"I may have read and reread that letter seven times since yesterday
afternoon
knowing there are words between words-that what's been said is only the
beginning in a sense.
It was easy when she was yelling, telling me to go to hell-that I could
only love from a distance
And somehow I just can't picture you doing that … I think you actually
understand-
Which probably makes it easier, harder, more complicated than I expected."
And I think of us, years from now, laughing and sharing yet another cigarette
and scotch
While my new boyfriend fingers my hair and eyes your girl.
An easy friendship and the grace of nostalgia settling around us.
And for then, if not for now-I forgive you.
