Still Time

I forget reason is unnecessary
When viewing the world.
It is simply there
To be seen
Taken in
With no qualification needed.

It was the same with her.
Reason was unnecessary
When drinking in her
Long legs
Lanky body
On her belly
Tangled in sheets
Eyes half open
The seed of a smile
On her reddened face
Hair tussled
And dark
Against porcelain flesh.

Her image
Is etched
Like an old daguerreotype
In the folds of my brain
Eternal
Never aging
Unchanged.
I still see her white robe
On the cream carpet
At the foot
Of the bed’s dark wood.

I still hear her voice
Content and troubled
At the same time
A contradiction
Just like her.

Stay
She said.
Do not leave.
Not yet.

There is still time.

There was
And there wasn’t.
My contradiction.

I kissed her
And left.

If I could rewind time
Do at all again
I would stay.
I would never leave.
I cannot remember what urgency
Made me go.
But I can recall every reason
I should have stayed.

Time is like that.
It smirks at us
Plays us for the fool we are.

She remains in memory
In that brilliant wash of afternoon light
Streaming through her window
The swell of her breast curving
Into the Egyptian cotton sheet
Her softly begging me
Stay.

There’s still time
She said.