Poem: I Met My Old Lover

Electrical circuits from brain to our history to uncertain eternity to present whims are activated by, among other elemental energies, love. Apocalypse is in the emotional tornado, fire storm, tsunami, earthquake. At some point your lifetime reach for the Almighty Other kicks in, becomes part of the habitual struggle.

I Met My Old Lover

I met my old lover on the street.
I had to tell him, You are not
subtle enough to be my lover.
I had to tell him, You are not
sensuous enough to be my lover.
I had to confess, Those poems?
Not about you. Admit, Not
about me. The I enchanted
into being? The you lured into
being? Feeble misunderstandings
of the great world we’re invited
to, sampled, merely, in flesh.
Imagine what we might join,
its distance from our scrabbling
lives eking joy, oh, knowing joy
best we can. We old lovers are
portals and even at the threshold
slip and stumble. We old lovers
are allowed, even at the threshold,
to crave love’s futility, though
better to long for what is more
handsome or protective than
the you or I ever could become.


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Sarah Sarai. Published in Potomac Review and included in The Future Is Happy.