Broad Strokes

He is, and
He is not, and
In a cosmic sense,
This state of transience
morphs into permanence.


She is not, and
Will not be, and
In a permanent sense,
A conjuring of his mind’s
Furtive glances into possibility.


Glimpses of a future
In a past
That has never touched the soil
Of the now.


He is there. And
She is there. And
They are something like happy.


He wanted to tell her this.
To say “I find this thing of ours
Enthralling.”
What he wanted to say was, “This feels, complete.”


He says something in-between both--something non-committal but warm, and
The space where she
Has not actually been
Does not respond.


Presently, the absence is realized.
Comes into a sharp focus. She was here, and
Now she is not, and
He knows she isn’t coming back.
His attempts will all be in vain.
He will feel abandoned by the departure of
someone who has never
been.


It was something, and
It was never actually something, and
He felt a sense of her absence all in his marrow.
The tingle of her never-presence
Arranging itself in a space above his kidneys.


A piece of something,
Snatched to the sky, thin tissue paper
Of ornate colors
Blowing in the afternoon air.


Almost there, he thinks as he reaches for
the fluttering papers moving beyond
his grasp, but
He knows.
She might know too, had she existed.
They both would, and do, know.


It never was.