–Amidst the clatter of the waves crashing
the seagulls squawk echoing, and
the breeze colliding with earth and sky
as the clouds acted as buffer to the sun;
in that dim moment, standing, facing south,
so far from the space of my own existence,
it dawned on me-an epiphany, as you entered
my thoughts for the second time that day
earlier, before the raindrops were dried
in the breeze, as the dark of night clung
to the day like a small child, I found myself
in the midst of a conversation, one that
had absolutely nothing to do with you, and yet
as I interjected into that conversation, which
couldn’t have been further removed from you,
something you had once told me
about a figure equally as removed from you
as that conversation, I thought of you
no one noticed, definitely not the seagulls
the waves, or the raindrops, and least of all
the person I happened to be conversing with;
as easily as I had snuck you into my present
and that conversation, I had diverted everyone
to the thing you told me and away from you;
and while all things: the seagulls, the waves,
the raindrops and my listener thought about
what you once told me long ago, when
we shared our last embrace, I thought of you.
Then the conversation dwindled and ended,
and the raindrops dried in the breeze.
So many years stand between now and
that moment of our last embrace, and so
many memories cling to me, the same way
I cling to those people-like you-who once
told me something completely removed
from them, which I still use in conversation
making sure each time to sneak them into
the moment, to note each time “a friend
once told me” so that the conversation
becomes a kind of reunion in which
for the brief phrase which follows the note
of attribute, I think of them, even as the seagulls,
the waves, the raindrops,the breeze and
my listener think only of the phrase; while
I wish they could acknowledge the friend too.