History

HISTORY

I drove 200 miles to see you
Drawn by nostalgia and sense memories:
Nails raking my back;
Apple shampoo smell in your hair;
Laughter, high and sharp as breaking glass.
We have history together,
You and I.
We were like France and Germany
During World War Two.
Only I forget who was who.
Who invaded?
Who resisted?
What was our Normandy?
Were our friends Allies or Axis?
I don’t remember.
Chalk it up to shell shock,
The passage of years,
Early onset dementia,
Or too much whiskey.
It doesn’t matter.
We’re not those people anymore.
We’re older and grayer.
Hopefully wiser.
But there were hints of the woman you were
In the toss of your hair,
The rough calluses on your fingers,
Your jacket patched with duct tape at the elbows.
After you played your set,
We talked and smoked and drank
Until I knew it was time to go.
You asked me to stay,
But I remembered our history,
And didn’t want to repeat it.
When we said goodbye,
When we hugged,
You felt slight in my arms.
Thin.
Ephemeral.
And I had this sense,
That I would never see you again.
That this was it,
The end of our history.
So I wrote this down,
In the early morning hours.
Because history should not be repeated,
But neither should it should be forgotten
And I want to remember.