90spoems/cling

You cling to some distant memory, a piece of tissue, perhaps, which has become the sacrificial object of a moment when life was a shimmering thing and made you believe, not only that it could be different, but that it had already changed.

Moments take on tremendous significance in the waiting life. They serve to confuse us out of accepting what appears to be the unwelcome truth of today.

Women who do not know what else to do cling to a hanky because it still has his scent. He passed through her life one evening and has not thought of her since.

She has stopped waiting for him to call but takes the hanky out now and then to remember.

1993 or 1994