The Severance
by Phil Terman
I thought the lilies would save us,
as we swam toward them,
that eternal summer day
when we still meant something
to each other, not lovers,
or sister and brother, but
in the same water drawn
to the same beauties: pink
and white blossoms, deep
within the pond’s shade.
A death, the end of this
friendship, or worse, familiars
still floating through our lives
but without acknowledgment,
no greeting or glance
to betray our severance.
Not unusual, this disavowal,
though no ritual, the lighting
of a candle, a prayer over
the loss, a beating of a breast
attesting that something
stirred there, kind words
were exchanged, and time,
even onto the next generation—
that they had meaning,
those café encounters. Now
we know our absence, worse
than strangers. I think I can
recount the story of our relation
and its affirmations, when we were
upper-most in our minds, closer,
sometimes, than those with whom
we share a name and an origin—
like children who pierce
their own flesh and press wound
with wound or as if like ancients
we assembled a cairn of stones
and a pillar
forbidding each other to pass
with evil intent.
Like them, we broke bread.
We feasted.
Like them, we resolved,
discussed the righteous life
and its difficulties, measuring words
that were our shared world,
the way we loved—that poetry
we were speaking toward
and which we too often failed,
a syllable said wrong
like a scorch on the tongue.
Did we put off our shoes
from our feet? Did we know
we stood on holy ground? |
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