1983-11-10

I called Helen K. today
and said I wanted to say goodbye
that just friends after what we had been
was not something I could do

It wasn’t bitter or argumentative;
as ever she meets me softly but head on.
we talked about us…what we had been
and why it had been so good…

That we could descent into utter passion
and yet operate with flawless logic
that we never fell into the emotion traps
that wait for lovers who aren’t friends

The afternoon in Palos Verdes when we last made love
in a field of waving grass and warm sunlight
of letters and poems written and destroyed
of consciousness and age, of lifetime friends…and now

gallagher
10 Nov 83


— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

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