A place like this
In the distance, and with agonising slowness you divulge fragments of our past. It was in a place like this, though there were others where we stayed for a while, looking out to sea beyond the harbour towards another coastline, or up much higher, looking out over roof tops then, and trees. Or sheltering from the storm of some imagined enemy. Once, I thought I saw a movement, in the distance, between the trees, but only once. In the night, when the sky was a particular colour and the leaves looked like luminous negatives we'd wait to cross the border, though one of us was always on the other side. You were unaware of my presence then and I, could not remember until now, that I had been with you. You had travelled alone and I had cried at the thought of you being alone and of always having to leave.
"What did you leave behind in those places?", I asked.
"You try to forget" you said, "when it's so long ago", and I wondered if you were trying to forget that you knew me in those days.
In the distance, on the other side I waited for you. You wrote me letters about where you had been. I wondered if you were hiding something from me. With agonising slowness, on the other side, I waited for you. Once, I thought I saw a movement, in the distance, between the trees, but only once.