number twenty three

twenty three

chipped and peeling clapboard

matches my memory of this place

held together by wishes

and here i am again

clinging to a wish

opening the door,

her hair falls across her face.

i remember it fell like that. like old curtains reluctantly drawn back

to let in whatever thin light was available.

she hooks two fingers into the silvered threads and pulls them back behind her ear.

at first glance, i see her eyes are older now.

more thoughtful and considering.

perhaps even wary.

she doesn't remember who i am.

the moment fills and expands and then just as suddenly collapses with recognition.

her eyes glisten for an instant, but i can see that they're just as quickly guttering

like candles in the breeze of our sudden, cluttered communion.

"you . . . here?" she asks with some kind of mid-ground voicing, half here, half elsewhere.

ever the opportunist i lunge at the opening her words provide.

"may i come in?"

her body pulls back a half-step, as she attaches this moment to the history of us, this doorway, and this house.

in her reluctant head drop, in the falling of the curtains of hair back across the window of her face,

we slide into the past.

i take my own half-step backwards suddenly seeking the present, until she says with reluctant encouragement,

"no, come on. come on in. you look tired.

are you hungry?"

***

thankyou very much to my friend for the visual prompt.