My Santiago

That brief lifetime

I wonder if you dream at moments, in sluggish afternoons, When the day drags, Or night-time sitting by the lamplight, Whilst your companion dozes, By the winter hearth,

Of a single night We plucked, -

When we were young -

Stolen from the life we had set, And fell into a place away from time, Where I could love you like there was no tomorrow -as indeed there wasn’t for us? I wonder if you finger that memory, secretly pondering where I might be, And how it could have been? Do you think back to that night? Those sacred hours between sunset and rise, Where we lived just for each other, Without need for more than just a name? Are you tempted to search for me? To slyly peer at my face, My life, as I have it now, You the intruder, the voyeur, Looking into a world Shut out to you?

And does the moment pass, As does the afternoon, And the demands of a husband, A grandchild, Jolt you back to life?

Knowing it was, as it was, Never could be more, But nor will it be ever less. Just that moment, That one brief lifetime, Nothing more.