Three flames

I see them playing in sepia tones

Just on the edge of my mind, under apple trees.

In some imagined bucolic paradise,

I hear their laughter on the scented summer breeze.

­

Out of reach. Always slightly out of focus.

Always just too far adrift for me to gather them in,

Laughing, and hold them close

To feel their warm soft breath against my skin

To inhale their sweet innocence.

You can’t miss what you never had, I guess

But the space I carved out for them

In my heart echoes and whistles with their emptiness.

Seasons turned, decades passed

My Sun-King boy came, and time dulled the pain.

Life moves on but lost love too endures

Exquisite sharp pinpricks of grief still remain­­

ÓTeresa Durran 181125