Measure of Time 

Two months
three days into our marriage
and before his ship slipped dock
for its second Vietnam tour,        
the first petal
dropped from the rose.

'You crowd my space',
shoving me
across the room.

Five years
six months
three days later,
our apartment littered with petals,
I left.
Created a new life.
Cultivated, perhaps,
too many new gardens.

Nine years,
four months,
two days
after I last saw him,
we met in that old Indian dive
off Harvard Square.
Tanned,
thinner,
more tentative,
he took my hand.

Somewhere between
the hummus and rum balls,
we finally laughed
remembered
cried about the war days
that war
ours, too

Three hours
thirty minutes
forty seconds later,
when we said our goodbyes,
I realized...
the bloom might
have deserted the rose,
but the bud remained,
intact

Pris Campbell
(c)2002                

Music: Father and Son by Cat Stevens
Photograph: The Vietnam days, Hawaii.

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