Judith Roche
What We Learned from Old Boyfriends
One day you walk down a road
and the forest closes behind you.
When you look back you can't see
where you've been, though you'd planned
to take your hard-earned knowledge
with you into the unfurling future.
It's fine-grained quality allowed some
to sift away like spilt powder in wind.
The rest turned liquid, a rain so light
your parched appetite soaked it up.
It's deep in your body now
but you can't call it up to mind.
Possibly it freshens your cells
and informs the most desperate decisions.
Possibly you've pissed it away
like time, which is lost
and wondering through that dark forest
tangled with past-tense kisses
though you can only bring back
the high points, and they distorted,
the boyfriends like you mother -
who is both closed off in the deep wood behind
and waiting for you at the end -
of what you can't say. What is clear
is you are alone on this stretch
and without what you wanted
to pick up along the way.
Copyright © 1996 Judith Roche
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