Day 337: The Places We Will Be

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seventeen years ago,

before children were born
and parents were buried,

before mortgages and IRAs,

before jobs gained
and purposes lost,

before middle passages
and end of life fears,

before cancer,

before moves,

before expectations
hoped with hesitation,

before doubt,
before duty,

 

i sat at this table –
in this restaurant –
in time –

 

and told a man i loved him.

 

it was the first time
i said those words
in that way.

 

it is in the tracing
of these steps we’ve walked
and sitting at our tables, long past supped,
that i call upon what we’ve been.

that those old places
of memory and promise
might bear us on

to the places we will be.

 

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