These Streets Where We Walked

I'm coming back for awhile
To those childhood shops and
The hillside streets where we walked.

My mind returns too often
To the vision of you -- appearing
Unexpected, popping
Out of a doorway as I passed
[A deli, with your Russian Tea;
A classroom, where I shouldn't have been]
-- the recognition -- the shock -- the joy!

How often did we repeat that scene,
So naive, so innocent, so jaded,
I was your cynical optimist,
You were my Catherine Barkley --
A couple of high school ancients.

The very intensity of our bond
Regularly ruptured our reunion.
We seemed always to burn each other out:
Like the love of two flaming moths,
Drawn to each other's light.

Then, exhausted by our love,
We'd draw apart, in dormant
Self-protection, until, unexpected,
We next run into each other's arms,
In these streets where we walked.

The roofs: we explored them one day;
You were getting a dress for a wedding.
Store to store, roof to roof;
I've never shopped a day
That held such magic.

The sight of you emerging
Youthful, enthused, glowing
From Loveman's dressing room
In a wedding dress -- my heart aches.

The opening of the city below us
Minutes later, as we stole to the Dome's Roof
And your eyes' bright hearted delight
At the beauty -- my soul aches.

These streets where we walked
Echo adolescent footsteps now hollow
Like hooves on your silent coffin,
And my life aches.

These streets that we walked continue
To plead for merciful reprieve
When my nightly hauntings you inhabit.

Yes, these streets where we walked
Are lonely, yet filled with the life
That you chose to leave to me alone.

LMC 20 May 1998