The Way We Were

[Pilgrim]

I regularly put this question to both male and female acquaintances: If reincarnation were a fact, and you had a choice, would you come back as a man or a woman? Results to date indicate that 100% of the males and 57% of the females would come back as a man.

These results may (or may not) have prompted the following:

The Way We Were

Fancy meeting him again,
that remnant of the past.
I thought I’d gotten over him;
was free of him at last.

Then up he pops in Martin Square,
where once we used to meet.
A decade older now, of course,
but my heart skipped a beat.

We stopped awhile for coffee;
I stifled back my tears -
and felt myself dragged back again
across the slow, sad years.

He said he lived alone these days;
he said his wife had died.
I thought about the way we were;
remembered how he’d lied.

He said they’d had a rotten life;
his hand reached out for mine.
So couldn’t we forget the past
and try a second time?

I said I had a plane to catch,
a client waiting there.
But sure, I said, we’d meet again,
right there in Martin Square.

The Good Book says we should forgive;
experience says we don’t.
Perhaps I’ll meet him as agreed,
but then - perhaps, I won’t.