Looking back

I'd kissed a girl bare-met
in the station at Madrid;
we hoped we'd meet again
a day, a life, or two, later.
I'd slept by another,
after meeting, in passing, on a train -
a brief communion,
as if always married,
as if hardly knowing,
and we danced with the Communists
at their gentle 'festa', the 'lotta' won;
with another, I cruised
the windswept autobahn,
warm,
at peace -
in that little, yellow Beetle
that she loved so much -
through that proud and icy land,
and upon the curve of her waist
I placed my hand …
I see them now, so far,
so far away like silken curtains flowing
in the wind, as I see this girl,
this woman on the cusp,
her face bare-lightly smiling,
her skin so pale and cloud-like,
her eyes and lashes
a flash of black,
her hair ashen –
in statement of herself so bright,
so elemental, so dark,
so here,
so almost there
for me