Visit

The doorbell rang; it was the last

person I expected to see.

The whiskers grizzled and the hair

white; face more deeply lined

 

and the eyes sadder, kinder;

a rounder stoop to the shoulders.

I didn’t know what to say. He smiled

and spoke words of comfort.

 

They slip my mind now.

They sounded banal, unexceptional,

but the air was full of bells;

warmth flowed through the winter.

 

He turned and walked away.

I closed the door.

He had absorbed me;

I was yet to become him.