While You Were Gone

While you were away,
I lived the rest of my life.
I didn’t get to see you
sitting across the kitchen table
having that first cup of the day.
I had to keep sipping
on my own. Decades.
I didn’t mean to forget
what could have been.

At first I thought
I could stop time.
I took a course in lucid dreaming
to see you alive,
expected your golden red hair
to toss in the sunlight
as you ran toward my arms.
I’m sorry, love.
While you were gone
I had to keep on, until now

I’m nearly eighty, and so many
other stories happened,
whole novels
with characters you never met.
I don’t know what
you and I would have been like
sitting in the mornings across the table.

I do know your ways, so long ago,
made the person I became
better, quieter, more true.
While you were gone, love,
I lived many lives.
This morning as I sip my tea
and think how long you’ve been away,
across my kitchen table
I suddenly sense you smiling.

                               with profound gratitude to  JMD

            ©Susa Silvermarie 2025