Old Acquaintance

Stuffy offices boil
With the heady brew of renewal.
I am old Father Time among the revellers,
They laugh and sing and dance on the venerable tables,
And I wander among them all
A smile, a word, a greeting,
But I am barely seen
A ghost of the past.


Through the drifting, choking smoke, I spy
The little green number–hair so red, frame so rounded,
And from her hand the cigarette dangles...


The cigarette that dangled from her hand,
The chestnut hair, the green dress. And I,
Uniformed, hold the ashtray below that
Precipitous length of consumed tobacco–
Whisper for her ear alone, "tap now"
The face turned to me, eyes dark and inviting
With a laugh that sparkled like champagne.


We talked while revellers danced about us,
Singing, laughing till the radio's chimes
Herald the newborn year and our own new love was born
In the kiss of the striking bell.


Echoes of the laughing past mingle
With the laughter now. And my unfocussed eye
Has lost her in the years.


She is here. I cannot lose her once more,
Not spend another lifetime forsaken.


The laughing subsides to the buzz of expectation
As death and rebirth approach closer still.
I look again and there she stands,
I am bewitched by her beauty once more.
And the chimes that herald new life
Spring from the TV turned up loud.


And her beautiful lips are pursed for the
Kiss to come...and as the bell tolls
The kiss is stolen by her man.


I am old Father Time and she slips by me
Once more.