These Hazy Days

Possibility

I'm sorry for my inability
To hold a simple conversation.
I'm sorry for the days of silence, for avoiding you in the hall,
For the days I wouldn't meet your eyes and scarcely spoke at all.
I'm sorry, too, for the time I took in saying this.
It can't mean much anymore.

It's autumn, but of course you know that—
Your house is a mere five minutes from my own.
I can picture your shadow on the sunlit porch,
Can hear your boots tapping on the floorboards
To the beat of a song I wouldn't know.
I can see the maples flaring orange,
The lawn bejeweled with purple spiderwebs
And plastic skeletons from Rite-Aid.
Or maybe you changed your décor this year—
I haven't walked your block in months.
And for that, I'm sorry too.

Our part of the world has shifted.
I feel it in the trembling leaves
Pulled by silver strings along the wind.
I feel it in the harvest moon
Who with her touch draws pearls from oysters,
Who invokes in me these sudden words.
From gentle waters she wakens tides,
Demands acknowledgment
Of the unspoken.

It's too late, and I see this now,
But still I'd like for you to know.
So here go I, old harvest moon—
Acknowledgment of my distance.

I'm aware of my mistakes,
Of my conversational ineptitude.
I was never natural in your presence,
I never had a clue of what to say.
How could I, when all I knew,
Was a fanciful false reality,
The possibility of me and you?