The Past - A Return Poem by Herbert Nehrlich

It was a bed of leaves,
skunk cabbage to be exact.
The urges have it, someone said
at that re-union in the smallest of,
and rustiest of towns, whoppeee.

Goddammit all those claps and straps,
a temperate climate does not make allowance
for urgency, I bless the tropics, truly
where barely seconds are required to
give in or take her up on sudden weakness.

So, on a bed of fragrant if not pleasant green observers
we reminisced and told each other about time,
how it had cheated us and raced ahead to brag
about the years when we were struggling to pass.
So we made up for it, felt guilty in the morning.

But at a whim we sat at breakfast, holding hands
we fed each other country sausage and farm eggs
and in our eyes we saw the past as if we lived there
until we did, had been transported back in time.
I licked her fingers then, all ten, and one by one,
we closed our eyes and all the world did go away.