Poetry

Elderly joggers

With a lack of afternoon to learn to paint or play piano,
they put heel onto pavement, moving from
the whiskeyed caravan duvets of teenage engagements
further into the spaces of replacement.
Elderly joggers come out in dusk.
I’ve seen them and thought this is worse,
that no amount of fond teas together
spent listening to racing on the wireless
could match the burst of bolting
lovers’ padlocks to bridges in Berlin.
The light chime of wrought iron railings
takes me into the familiar folds of memory
where you thumb my cheeks and we speak
like we know each other

and still they run. Growing fainter in form and thought,
passed the point of recalling how all this started
but committed to the hope
that I will stay here for you
as long as I can,
and because there is never enough time,
the elderly joggers come out in dusk.

Lewis Haubus