Susan Smpadian

REMEMBRANCE

This is the stairway we laughed on, foolishly, convulsively, five hundred days ago today. And there is the hardware store we stopped at, and figured out with calm despair, about how much linoleum it would

take to cover

a floor

that never

was.

Strange...

how an empty stairway, and a hardware store can bring you back to life from nowhere,

and how wrong it seems for me

to ascend those stairs without you.

I thought I had forgotten you, but I can see that remembrance

is thicker than death,

and the heart

is a faithful thing. And as long

as there are

empty stairways,

and hard-ware stores,

and as long

as I can hear,

and nothing

blurs my vision,

you will laugh with me

eternally,

on some dark stairway, foolishly,

convulsively,

as we did

five hundred days D.F. ago

today.

one

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