Where We've Been

I have heard that time
is like paddling a rowboat,
always looking backward, slipping
forward through the cold water
as eddies shape around our oars.

Or maybe we are captives
bound in a trunk, trying,
perhaps, to see a little light
through the broken keyhole
as we are raced to a shack
in the fractured night, and,
secretly willing, locked into a cage
and fed, knowing the worst part
is never knowing exactly when,
until our captor becomes our only
hope, and we fall in love.

It could be that time is
two people walking down a sidewalk
with nothing much to say
to each other, but sometimes
their two hands brush, and there
is a moment, a question, a rising
possibility. And the cars
rush past from behind, beer cans
tossed from open windows,
but all they do is look around
at trees, the grass, the cracked cement,
at people passing in segments
through their lives, and
they are certain, they don't understand
why, but they know, the way time knows,
that they will always pass through each other.