A Love Story Retold That Perhaps You Have Read Before Poem by RIC BASTASA

i: seed sprouts, a head cover removed
detached

he recalls an island and two shadows entwined
under the spell of the full moon
mesmerized, exhausted, dreaming,
sweet sleep, lovers passionate about
sweat and tight flesh

she remembers
the embers and the cold darkness
the emptiness filled by his moans
and the quivers of her desires
silenced
all her senses awakening to the wonders
of togetherness and wanton
touches
lips upon lips
weight upon her
helplessness amidst the ruins
of her seduction

ii: time flies as a swift bird
stones covered with dust and humus

he said she was part of his past
now that he is old
and ugly
and helpless in poverty
with a young, native woman
caring for him

he remembers something sad
as separation of two intimacies
a distance of two words
opposed meanings

she said she had forgotten him
her first love
she said she lives alone in the land of many winters
and knows how to take care of herself
she said she is happy
and now so free
she says the apple trees in time shall bloom
a daughter sits under it and she takes her picture


iii: the sun rises in the east, that is a fact
the storm subsides, one gropes for therapeutic metaphors
along the silent nooks of the shores
and then the reunion of clauses and phrases
wanting to have complete thoughts

he told her things may be lost and people may be hurt
but chances are
there are rainbows sometimes that reconnect hearts
bridges that dissolves distances

he told her that some missing pieces are found
some chains of love become a necklace of reunions
and reconciliations

he did not tell her though because it is so hurting
that
he did not really love her that whole enough
when he made love to her on that island of desire
he was thinking of another one
his true love
that once broke his heart many years ago
when once he
was whole and true and young and
honest and real
when he met her
he did not tell her he was such a shattered glass
with splinters all spread
on the bottom of the ocean floor