Games, Malacca2 [ereader that reads to you .TXT] 📗

GAMES

That almost-dark-of-the-moon night,
holding hands by the fireplace,
the surf surging forevers for us...
you said, when a little girl,

you had wanted more than anything
--for a time,
had cried childish tears
for a tiny tea service to play
grownup games in the sandbox.

You were hostess to dolls and teddy bears
offering make-believe sweets,
and just-pretend sympathy
when a guest toppled from its prop.

You sipped Irish coffee from a porcelain teacup,
your hair,dark and fragrant on my shoulder,
and wondered what had happened,
what became of the tin tea service
you left behind with childhood.

We laughed then
at games girls and boys outgrow,
and went out to walk, arms about each other,
watching the faint light remaining
slide across chilling waves
ending its path at our feet
where the beach was dry.

We made our own new fable: love abides
on the spot where the last of moonlight
finds the shore under our feet.
Better than mythical gold where rainbows end,
because the shining bands are illusion,
that our fingers could never quite touch.

We sheltered from sea winds,
where dunes enfolded, and gave sparse warmth
left over from the sun.
What I finally knew then,
and did not want to know,
your eyes could no longer pretend.

We forgot the teacups, cold and empty,
lying in the sand;
then said we would go back together in daylight,
and find what we had abandoned.

Mornings now, empty spaces confront me,
like the incomplete set on my shelf,
while I sit like a plastic doll in the sandbox
until the game begins again.

Tom Drinkard (a.k.a. Malacca2)

Publication Date: 02-17-2011

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