AJ Lewis Poetry, Poems: Starting Again (from "A Slip Of The Tongue")

summer is over
and a cool breeze moves in through the patio door;
the palm leaves outside sway and come alive
against the quiet moon of
this evening.
something is happening here in me -
a memory is surfacing -
and I hear wind chimes
and I remember the Autumn that I spent with her,
of course now long over,
but I have not thought of her for years.

and something happened
and we lost those quiet moments staying up at night
talking and
walking in the night air.
and it saddens me
that she reminds me
of why I keep myself away from people now - that all of my life
people
have seemed to keep me at a distance:
never really being the friend, always intrigued by me to use me
and then to move on.
ah, but she seemed different and special then
and she ignited a passion in me.

but now this memory has progressed forward
and I recall the last real conversation that we had together
when she told me what she thought of me
and she left me there on the cement steps
to wonder why I am
who I am
and why she could no longer accept me.

several years later I was telling a friend about her
and he suggested that I go knock on her door to say hello.
we were out driving, and against my better judgment,
we showed up at her house.

the lights were off and the house looked cold
like a familiar ghost.

no one was home.

when I got back into my car
I looked in my rear view mirror as we drove away
and I watched her dark house slowly disappear into the night.

and I see now,
that was exactly how I left it
the first time.