Who When Why Or How (Poetry)

Who knows

who I loved and when it was
and why I loved or how
those pages rubbed from history
have ceased to matter now

since those dear names that I forget
have long-forgotten me
their faces once the clearest held
in youth’s bright memory

have faded — lost among the years
each found a different life —
became another’s husband while
I’m someone else’s wife.

Yet there are times I dream of them
so vividly I feel
I’ve maybe glimpsed alternate worlds
the moment fleshed so real

old loves rekindled burn as bright
heart-warming through and through
evoke that same near-giddy joy
and passion soars anew.

Perhaps past loves still share the dream
wherever they now sleep
and cross that bridge from mind to mind
to find emotion’s deep

reliquary for souvenirs —
rare gems of romance lie
winking on the ocean bed
as fate’s blind fish drift by.