Poetry

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As you told us of your soon departure I must have been nervous
enough to scrape off a scab

because that’s exactly what I did.

Only the scab was not on my body

it was on the arm of my leather recliner instead. The more you talked the more I rubbed and scraped as if keeping time, rubbed and scraped and scrubbed a spot that was hardly there to begin with, but came on strong later thanks to me. There is where the ugly anxious side of your tale of unavoidable woe is recorded for posterity. I’m not supposed to forget this. And that is the indelible shadow side I had to answer for later when held accountable. (Though honestly it could have been much worse and I marvel again at how judgement was tempered with the mercy that was shown me.)

The more socially correct and presentable side was attractively embodied in our polite and polished conversation, in which no one was held accountable or rubbed the wrong way, and where we all got off scot-free…..or at least thought we did.

But, lo and behold, the realm of the real even if unconscious always seems to have the more final word.

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