she says

you were wearing striped pants and a tie,
she says. that should be a poem, i say, and i lie
to myself over and over, the thankless job
of reassurances. our sentences, long
and unfinished, are fragments of memories,
somehow two instances of the same time or figurines
captured in soapstone and touching only perhaps
where they never should have. seconds elapse
and then she adds, returning us to now,
i never know what to say out loud.