Sunday 4 November 2012

The Life Not Lived

I have almost forgotten the life not lived.
It was not so very different, perhaps,
From this. The same comforts, and some faces,
Persist.

On the whole, I think,
It was satisfying,
Like an absence of hunger can be.

Almost, but for pages like these,
And long evenings, and fading leaves
That remember a might-have-been me.


My life not lived searches high and low,
It haunts the street corners that we both know,
For a sign, a tap at a lighted window-
Till "Where were you so long?" said she.