Walking the Dog with Anne

I was that man
much younger then
who walked with you
who wished he'd known
it would be our last.

Seventy four, an open door
we stepped outside
and suddenly in the city, on the street
in the crowd we were alone
with the dog.

You smoked, you always smoked
and I wondered
if you were walking us
or just writing a poem
each pause a caesura

everything else a verse.
Funny, I'd count them at times
running strange mental calculations:
at two per day, you'd write
over sixty poems a month.

At three, four or five a day…
I lost the permutations
as I caught a peek
beneath your blouse
so seductively unbuttoned.

Your art was black, jet ink
stained you, you wrote to live
without the darkness
you'd surely die.
The dog wagged its tail

and we walked
and I hoped I was a poem
a whispered passage
you could read
as a tear trickled down your face.

If only I’d known how close you were
how far away.
You were that girl
and I, dear love, was that man.
There never was a dog.