Member-only story
Double Star
a poem about double stars
That night you pushed the hands of the clock
to midnight, three minutes early, as if
what time we’d spent as strangers was enough,
as if the time we’d spent dancing with anyone
who came along was nothing
more than a chance to arrive here now.
I’ve been running ever since, hurrying
to catch up with you though you’re always
out of sight, never looking back.
Yet whenever I stop you’re always just behind me
and I can see the distances we’ve covered
spread out beyond your shoulder
like some impossibly detailed map.
I can see how the separate patterns we’re
locked in have always been the same ones.
We are never apart, never together.
Those moments you stumble,
I’m too far away to do anything but watch,
those moments I stop, bewildered,
all you can give across the distance is your voice.
Physicists tell us double stars come together
like lovers in a dance of gravity and repulsion,
that their merging light burns so brightly
we can only see from this distance one light.
Whatever of me burns in you,
whatever of you burns through me
pulls us together and keeps us apart.
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Copyright 2010 Marguerite Floyd all rights reserved
