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Once more

By Brett Rogers

Illustration by Albert M. Nikhla

How to explain to a new lover half a lifetime

Walking hand-in-hand down sidewalks

Graying hair lit by streetlamps,

Yet tingly as children again,

A salve to the many scars

Of all those come and gone,

Scared to tears between

Lest this end the same;

Or in the shyness of first nakedness

Weathered so by experience

Into a perfect alignment of flaws.

Hopes and dreams once felled

Grow again from these moments,

Bound in shame no more.

Out of year by year of stillness

A certainty of passion explodes

And in the before and after

Leave days to be much more,

A place to fall in love with minds

To fill valleys with story-time laughter

And pits of stomachs with a soft brow,

To share the wisdom of failure.

Here the building of a lasting truth,

A deep breath of forever after,

Only possible in the facing of otherwise

That comes from bodies wearing down.

Time will till the rocks that lie deep:

Disappointment, distrust, pain, and sorrow,

Never without a knowing embrace,

Down to where darkest secrets wait

For the sunshine of understanding eyes

That watch newness fall away

Into the unfolding of half a lifetime.


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Posted On: July 10, 2024
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