small poem

11/25/05

I would
when I had hair like hers
toss my head
getting it out of my face
before resting on a pillow
like her

when I had hair not like hers
for mine is straight and always has been

before i knew that you can’t go back
not ever

before when finality was nothing more than a vague and impossibly distant abstraction
when days without number
dense and tangled like ancient forests
like names on a wall
or names of the gone in the ledgers of angels

before finality was a possibilty

when to defer meant later
not never

well what of it?

it is not then now
is it