Twenty-Five

Where were we
when the coming of the rain
made us turn from conversations to the window?

In mustard fields maybe,
           or the love jungle,
and as we talked
we were with others, not ourselves.

I was thinking of old birthdays and holidays gone wrong
           and pretty people seen on streetcars
      but never met.
Selling soda bottles to pay for movie matinees.
      I was twelve.
   Tarzan was the man I most resembled in those days
How can I have grown so old without once swinging on a vine?
      Did you think of party dresses
   and high school plays
           or hallways full of lovers not yet met?

The mind is such a junkyard;
                  it remembers candy bars
                          but not the Gettysburg address,
   Frank Sinatra's middle name
           but not the day your best friend died.

If in your mind there is some corner
      not yet occupied with numbers you may never need,
remind your memory of the day
                  we turned to watch the rain
      and turning back forgot
          that we belonged to one another.