Auto Response

You were polite.
Your smile correct
Like I’d triggered
An auto-response.

Were we not lovers, once?

There was no remembrance
In your eyes.
You spoke of graduations
And vacations.
No hint you recalled the passion
We swore we would never forget.

Where went
Our breathlessness?
The urgent insistence?
Do you not remember
The rain that fell
The nightlong?
The sweetened air
Filling our room
Our lungs?

I wanted to stop your talking.
Wanted to scream
“Shut the hell up!”
To ask how
Mexico
Had supplanted the burning
Of desire.

But I did not.

I said
“I have four grandchildren now.”
You smiled
Nodded
And said
“So good to see you again.”

“Yes,” I said.
But not really.