In Passing

by Zinta Aistars



What then?
If my hands mattered little,
that accustomed touch cupping your face,
finger drawn across your shoulder blade,
palms turned upward to catch
every tear you never cried for me;
and if my footfall on your weathered stairs
mattered little, that creak on the second step
gone silent, but a momentary distraction
while you dreamt of an old love
or a better one waiting in the wings,
the bloom on her a little less faded;
if the warm press of my lips on yours
can be folded away with the socks
in the back of the drawer, to be darned
if one could ever remember—
but with each day passing,
it grows a little easier to forget,
or one pretends it is so
while the seasons turn, the years fall
in a heap behind the battered bedstead
to collect dust beside an old slipper,
once so comfortable,
once your favorite, one half
of the pair you came home to.