Shape-Shifting Poem by William Cavanagh

Bygone, I harboured three girls in one bed. They now
harvest rumpled smiles and yield nervous babble mid
powwow, apropos… “Remember when”? There is
not a word with respect to our hush-hush as we
cackle and grin.

We are seasoned today and what happened then is
unlikely now, except for what we have filed away
within, from the time of… “Remember when”?
One can never relive the past but for the retrieval, of
good memories.

Periodically I am alone, I shape-shift and we are
three girls and a boy the way we were at eighteen.
So fluent so fresh so sleek… “Remember when”?
They whisper my name, I close my eyes and I
wickedly wish.

I have enough generic with cads and rascals and
I have no remorse. And oh my, how mellow we have ripened.
Time is shifting into high gear now and one day we shall fey
toward our fast future and crash, one by one and we will…
“Remember when”.