Your Lover, Become Finite Poem by Patti Masterman

At last it happens: your lover becomes finite
No longer belonging to the future
that's flowing like a river.

There's an end to words and gestures,
even to expressions-
Inconceivable; even one hour earlier.

A month, a week, or just a day ago,
it was all smooth runway,
running on seamlessly into forever.

Something so present now turning
to jangling, discordant memories.

You imagine yourself in the future then,
straining hard at facts
which are grown elusive, after so many years.

And if the distance was caused deliberately,
curses might come to mind,
but if it was caused by something else,
by outside forces,
over which there was no control-

Well how hateful of fate
to intervene like that,
where it had no business,
in the love affair of the century.

Much of that past has a lock and a placard upon it:
Forbidden, it now says; for eternity.

And after a while you are happier,
for not remembering too much.

Under one cause, you get sympathy cards.
And under the other, only evasive, curious glances.