There have been a few

like you and there

have been many

who have tried,

but there has never

been one that 
was you.

When you are

old and fat,

and I am old

and dead,

this poem will

find its way 
toward your

blurred, 
flickering eyesight

and you will know 
of a
love that was
 replicated,
but
 never duplicated,
that was complicated,
but 
never eradicated.

No names will

be said,
 no memories

told, draped in metaphor,

simply the words,

but you will know

it was you,

and you will know

it is you

because you feel

it, already, every day,

though it sits denied

in the back of

your mind,

though it sits silent

in the shadow of

every smile,

where it waits

and waits and waits,

with a patience I could

never find,

for that day,

when, old and fat,

you chance
 upon this

and know,
 with
slight regret,

that it was 
always you.

Her man had left for California.
Left her with nothing but the dog
to fight the emptiness of her apartment.
She told me she couldn't sleep anymore,
told me she couldn't eat anymore.
She got sick,
so sick— swore that it was
tuberculosis, malaria, typhoid fever—
My experience led me to my own diagnosis;
another case of a love long lost.

I didn't have the heart to tell her.
Instead I slept with her,
despite the risk of sickness.
She was afraid it was contagious.
I laughed, told her I would
take the risk.

I stayed there two weeks, laughing.
She could eat again,
she could smile again,
she made up love late into the night.

It seemed like this
quarantine was paradise.
Till up one night there was a
knock on the door.
It seemed like her bags
were already packed.
It seemed like she was gone
within the few moments it took to see
who it was behind the door.
Told me to lock up the
apartment, leave the key under the
*** of wilted hydrangeas.
He was back from California.
It seemed like she was cured—
of her malaria, her yellow fever, her cholera—
Just like that, a clean bill of health.
A modern day
miracle.

It seemed to have been
contagious,
after all.