"not really now not any more"*

it happens here

galaxies unroll in starpunctured blackness

as it happened then

firelight dances, scumbles through glass goblets

you hold me now

space cold as light years; we are afloat

as i held you there

dark timber, soft leather, colours of forest, river, sunrise

i loved you here

in infinity's moebius strip, two atoms untethered from everything

as i love you then

our hands clasped across the table; that night we thought we

would never let go

i am your past

you are mine

let me go

never have left me

time does not fly

aurora-like, it folds and pleats

and lies

the same gestures inhabit

different landscapes

you are no longer here

you are no longer

must i die to live with you?

must you be dead before i can love you?

* The last line of Alan Garner's "Red Shift" (London: Collins, 1973).

Mandy Macdonald is an Australian writer living in Aberdeen, Scotland, and trying to make sense of the 21st and earlier (and possibly later) centuries. She has had poems published here and there in print and online. The rest of the time, she sings.

Find more by Mandy Macdonald in the Author Index.

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