Poem 225

The classic ‘sliding doors’ theme of branching moments, awareness of alternate lives … the stuttering of fate, corrosive uncertainty that we zagged when we might have zigged …

( it’s nice how the poem moves from two specific experiences (with different people) to something more general emblematic and untethered (ie. I remember the scene just not who was on the other end of it) … I like the image of the ungrasped/ungraspable opportunity passing like a pregnant woman on a sailboat and the continuous slideshow makes a good metaphor for life … )

The Lost Moment

That was the moment lost
                                               the one
when you told me you vomited out of pure love for me
for instance
the one when you (someone else)
stood by my bed and said
such heavy rain 
and whoever was in the next room
       would never have known
       if you'd kissed me

the lost moment lunching out in space
going by like a pregnant woman on a sailboat
        as I hesitated at the door of the continuous
        slideshow and you looked over
        saw me lit in the doorway
        for a moment 
(now I'm not even sure 
who I'm talking to)

I can just see the two of us stumbling round the remnants
of a life trying to make sense of the weeds in a track
we were never meant to go down