Set back from the street behind a stand of trees,

a shuttered house unnoticed by casual passers-by,

where I see you standing in the middle of your life,

poised to enter a summer evening where there will be

drinks and then a meal on an old stone terrace,

and it will seem, as the glass of wine is lifted to your lips,

that no one you know will ever have to die.

All this, of course, has already happened, happened

many times, never to happen again. In that faraway dark,

two voices softly braid themselves into one murmuring

conversation, but words spoken so long ago

want to be private. I would not imagine it otherwise.

Unasked, I have entered a memory I was never part of,

and come face to face with love's leisurely vanished pace.

Everything's changed. The new owner's cut down trees,

cleared decades of overgrowth to let the light in, and anyone

passing right now will only see what the too-bright

present wants them to see: a gracious forthright house,

emptied of meaning, sitting overexposed in spring sunlight.