We had just moved in next door to them
and I didn't know and hadn't unpacked one carton.
She breezed over and said my name warmly
as if thirty years of nothing said and done
hadn't passed between us.
She smiled like we were pals in high school,
or even lovers, which wasn't true.
She had vanished between the sixth
and eighth grades like a beauty
stolen away by illness, accident, or death.
Though there is no yearbook picture
of her smiling, unsmiling face,
she stood there and talked like she had
spent four years among us dripping pain.
Had she been there, I'd have asked to take
her to the prom, tried to date her,
tried to make her hate me for eternity
when we broke up for the reasons spoiled kids
break up when they can't handle the job
of loving someone well.
I'd have been more prepared for our moving day encounter.
I'd have kissed her on the cheek at least to bruise
or to soften the sidewalk talk and the hurt.
Would've wished I could hug her with wild abandon
like a soldier come back from war.
Instead, I stood there stiff as a lamppost.
Her husband's breath was as close to me
as death as he held their hunting dog's choke collar tight.
I felt twisted up inside, foolish,
like a safe cracker taking a bank job,
when she walked over to say hello.
I almost cracked a smile but couldn't do it.
I've never wanted so much to take
a thing of beauty that wasn't mine.
