THE FRIEND WHO FELL BY

THE FRIEND WHO FELL BY

She was a stranger,
a picture, an imagining. We created
her, up from dust and threads,
a sort of Galatea. But
we did not know ourselves
as sculptors, and as our hands
worked night after eye-bright night,
we came to know her.

Not that we could see her, really. We would try:
some woman in a white dress,
poised in a doorway, yesterday’s light
casting her into shadow.

(Like the photos our parents took, remember:
some failed, black-and-white
evocation of a sterling, passion-full moment
reduced to shadows on dull paper.)

She was in our dreams, and she was
under our skin. Then,
injured—but never by her quiet hand—
we turned from her, washed her golden rings
from our ears, our eyes.

And now, after time’s cure
and memory’s relapse,
we wonder if we knew her,
if we dreamed her,
if we made her.
What she would have thought
if she could have awakened
and seen us
instead of just
singing,
hoping
someone
would
hear.