Once

There was a time
I thought love could be arranged—

that if I stayed,
if I did the necessary things,
it would follow.

You were small then.
You held my hand
because you wanted to.

That seemed enough.

Later,
something altered.

Not suddenly.
Nothing that clear.

You stepped away.
Or I did.
It hardly matters now.

There are reasons,
of course.

There are always reasons.

But they do not repair anything.

I stopped expecting
the call,
the return,
the version of things
I kept rehearsing.

You have your life.

I am not in it.

That is the fact.

Sometimes I think
of your hand in mine—
how easily it fit there.

It is a simple memory.
It does not ask for much.

Only to be left intact.