Your face is unfamiliar, you are not.
You rescued me from the explosion,
cavalier, confident in your strength;
let me win ages later,
just as triumphant.

I once saw you drink yourself lonely
under a shadow of
never had and couldn’t see.
I was there.
The breath on your neck
whispers of admiration in your dark,
that was me.
You were so old back then.

I lost you somewhere between
seventy and seventy,
hidden between so many doors;
saw you in strangers I should have
never known and believed
I’d dreamed you up
after all this time.

I may still have.