The Guest

Two who had loved in each other’s eyes met strangeness.
Wonder at loss. Distance. It seemed as if

(we pondered alike) a third party, a guest,
who knew us both, and lived, or seemed to live,

in our relation (shadow), grew as we grew,
suffered what gave us pain and breathed our breath

of ardor, had grown between us like a thorn.
An apartness. Or lifted (perhaps) subtly and secretly

away, as a feather in a light wind, a thistle
disengaged… In our eyes, knowledge of loss.

Wonder at absence. Vacancy. Terror at peace,
at acceptance—easy adjustment to unspeakable emptiness.