the window

i had a friend…intensely dear…who would wax poetic about the aftertaste of mocha, latte, and anything amaretto. she did not like coffee, she would proclaim, but the taste was a mnemonic link with her past. so she drank it, gulped it. like a never-ending rosary, she recited the line that it was necessary…

there were lines in her face. the ones that never left. the ones the foundation tried to hide. the ones that forced their way through a smile. she could not hide from them. for they were her history.

but i saw love in those lines. i saw gentleness. i saw a passion for life. not the fading years. not the fading promise…

in the stillness, i like to sit at my red and white checkered tablecloth, the candles lit, the flames flickering against reflecting panes, and remember those lines…the ones i said, the ones she said. they were not captured in the wind, nor written in a thousand poems, nor remembered on the five hundred miles home. but somewhere they are etched on a window beyond this place, beyond this time...

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