Looking back: Amsterdam moment
We were a triangle:
me, Anna, the street violinist;
equilateral: three in the snow;
isosceles: two women, one man;
his rumpled jacket, our coats;
one expert, two listeners;
two tourists, one resident;
one old, two young.
Two who’ll walk away,
one who’ll stay.
Anna was cold.
I touched her arm.
Her shivers clutched me through our coats.
She turned to our hotel,
I to a bridge over Prince’s canal
The triangle decomposes into points.
An old waltz follows all -
fingerless gloves and hope for a coin.
I forgot that tricorn confluence:
me, Anna, the street violinist;
after forty years isosceles again:
one wanderer in flashback, two lost
among the bridgeless channels
of a failed keep-in-touch.
I didn’t plan a re-visit
to this street, those thoughts.
I re-hear the waltz.
Now I know I’m a point.
