You Passed By To Say "Hello!"

 "To Ellen, My Loving and Well Loved Sister"

by Denis Joe

And when you are in town again
talk to me as a stranger.
Forget that you shared
your past with my present. Then

I may tell you the same stories;
you’ll laugh, forgetting the time
I first told you them. And I find
I have no fear except the realities

of sorrow: the darkness;
when I cannot find the light-switch
to see what is in front and which
I can grasp onto with sureness.

Touched by angels.
You, touched and taken.
Leaving something barren;
leaving everything brittle.