ESTIMATED TIME OF ARRIVAL
Barry Casselman
Copyright (c) 2012 by Barry Casselman All rights reserved.
One by one, you go away.
If there is a collision or an epidemic, a few times it is two or three or four.
There are photographs most of the time, and, in the old days, there were letters and notes, perhaps a gift from an occasion, your smile recorded in a home movie called my memory,
meals shared, notions put out here and there, almost no blunt affection, but of course I should know what you meant.
Did you know what I mean?
I forgot to ask you.
You retreat from sight, as you did when you went on vacations, business trips, your bunches of solitude, your time with others, or when I returned home, but you always did come back.
I think I keep waiting for your phone calls telling me you have returned, saying let’s meet to talk about where we were.
But I soon forget to wait for you. I am now too busy meeting others before they go away.