Between them is a canyon
They sometimes shine torches over the strata
of compressed time, with sweeping, shaking
hands. Eternity is present in their half smiles.
He carries a sadness for a long dead myth
that he longs to bury in the river far below.
She longs for a bridge in the same way you
want to win the lottery but never buy a ticket.
They talk in clouds that never quite merge.
Unnoticed by them both, in the shadows,
a man sits at a piano and plays Debussy,
the notes falling and fading into red dust.
This isn’t a climax to a Nora Ephron film.
They avoid eye contact. Later, she will text him
‘I searched for your flashlight but got lost.’
Night falls across the mesa like a stone
bouncing off a cliff into the welcoming earth.
Sorry to the people I saw who inspired this poem. I’m sure you were having a perfectly nice time in reality.
I was experimenting with consistency of images here. Not sure it fully works, but I liked some of the lines.