The Bouquet Remembered Best Was Artificial

On the first day you've known someone
or ten years later,
you are startled when you learn
this again: each stranger
possesses a history.

Suddenly, there is a ragged slip
of a truth. A stillborn twin, a taste
for hairy legs, a compulsive cheat
at checkers. This may

or may not involve
a lost dream of vaudeville
or a watery blonde memory. There may
be a spark of anger, of longing. Or only ash
ballooning upwards, disturbed by your presence
in such forgotten places.

Surprised as you may feel
at these rare revelations, put your best face
— a blank one — forward
as the speaker finally speaks of something more
than car battery trouble or stale toast at the diner,
as the well-worn folds of a past pull apart
like reverse origami.

 

© Jenniffer Lesh