Unfinished Memoir
I don’t completely remember that night
—who all was there, and everything they said—
but we met in the middle of that room,
I remember, when the rap session ended,
as if drawn to where our eyes had led us
all evening long as we explored each other.
What small talk we made with one another
—even that I forget. And to this day
I really don’t remember if you and I
exchanged numbers… Even so, time would tell
that our life together had just begun
thanks to a chance encounter in that place.
One prophetic detail: when we left there,
I remember, we went our separate ways
—a not inauspiciously original
manner in which to welcome our future!
“You want to go for a drink?” I had asked,
to which you’d answered “No,” beaming at me.
So mysterious, life! I look at you
now, sometimes, and wonder how we got here
—surely an unanswerable question.
And where this companionship will lead to,
who can say? —Further into a present,
hopefully, that is ours and open-ended,
where life and the memory of it are continuous.
And so, what else do I remember, love?
That lying in bed with you, time passing,
I would marvel at each dark arrival
that I made as toward your arms I travelled.
And that I asked, “O really? Any good?”
when you said you were an artist. That the best
does not come last, but happens all along,
constantly infusing our every move:
a becoming, reciprocal tenderness.
Also, the thrill of finding you at home
when I return, and days together spent
doing what we do late into the night:
reading (me) and painting (you), no words said:
deep within our closeness a place for room,
both memory-encompassed and present-ended;
and quietly contented, both of us,
with where we’ve come to be with each other.
—Richard Johns
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A native of Chicago, Richard Johns now lives, with his boyfriend of many years, in a small town on the far western fringe of that lovely city’s metropolitan sprawl. Three widely unavailable chapbooks bear his name: 2000 Poems, Hollywood Beach, and Explicit Lyrics: Poems. He sometimes checks his inbox at: richardmjohns@hotmail.com.