What if, you say, crossing the street under his umbrella,
what if a chance meeting should swamp one with old feelings 
unapparent of course to the other and in any case 
almost incomprehensible to oneself?

Pagan, he says eventually, flat-toned, doesn’t combine with Marian.
His succinct abstraction contrasts with your dither,
the lights in the meanwhile gone green then red and then green again
given his consideration to replies. 

What next, you think, the city streaming briskly by, that’s if 
there’s ever a next to such ephemeral crossings, 
besides, shouldn’t one be moving on from the lights? 
When his pause turns out to be a comma rather than a full stop.

When’s Easter this year? he says.

You flick pages of your diary. That ’n that and that ’n that 
and with a jab of fake clarity, maybe that as well. There’s Easter.
When his phone goes and he turns to recross the street 
with his umbrella. 

You didn’t, he says, weeks later, sand-muffled 
at an Easter that’s been unusually sunny, 
ring that other time either. 
Years ago, he means. 

And he’s right, you didn’t. For while his metaphor is stunning, 
what if anything can be said to this hunched-away back 
that belongs in an everyday kind of caring outside of Easter 
about the something curled up within you 
that dies a little each time? 

Bare-toed you touch the foot beside yours. 
Its removal is quietly sorrowed. 
Pagan—, he’d said, and …Marian.