Bells and Other Sorrows, VI

VI.

It is May.

A field
Spring air and cool wet grass
The bell by the train tracks
clangs its clarion tune.

You sprawl yourself across
the dew-green carpet
elbow-propped, bemused,
your leather-clad knee
touching mine

Five long years
of silence, broken
slivered in the soles
of our shoes

I sit cross-legged
hunched over, hidden
I cannot look at you for long
Your face, older now, too beautiful
for human eyes
I play with a blade of grass instead

You kiss me
child-gently
and I, shell-shocked
can do nothing
I turn my head away

I cannot contain the magnitude
of the words behind your lips.

Five long years
I've waited for this moment
but I rip myself away from you
and try not to run
back to the station.