Reunion

Published on by J. Kelland Perry
 

He sees her
at the edge
of the crowded soiree
and knows her instantly.

It is a blow.

The first time
in thirteen years
Fate has brought them
together
years for her
he’d heard
were far from kind.
He thinks
how dramatic
change can be from
Life’s random cruelties
and how no one
can prepare.
A nervous voyeur
he peeks into her eyes
smudged windows
at the brink
of unimaginable pain.
It frightens him
makes him wish
he hadn’t heard the rumors
and the images evoked
and now the proof.
Her face
the same yet injured
from the inside of her trauma
haunted eyes far too mature
for her years
her aspect stamped
with the hurt she tries to hide.
And he wonders
when she finds his broken smile
how it was ever possible
that once
she swarmed his secret dreams.
She turns away.
It occurs to him
she read it in his heart
and knows
the Muse has passed.

26 thoughts on “Reunion”

  1. Pingback: Friday Fiction: Reunion*

  2. beautiful….I love poetry and have two books under my name….but my only muse now is grief….so I have quit writing…I have aged from “unimaginable pain” like the person you write about.

    I am glad to read your lovely expressive poetry. xo

    Like

    Reply

  4. This is very interesting. In many ways I feel as if you are writing about me. I do not want to be that person whose eyes are no longer promising or hopeful, though I am afraid I am becoming this person.

    Like

    Reply

    1. Hi, Elizabeth. No, it is fiction, but I wrote it when I saw someone this past summer who had been through some terribly tough times. I was impacted by the change in her eyes, if that makes any sense. But the rest is made up. Did it stir up a memory of yours?

      Like

      Reply

      2. It’s true. You can sense a person’s true self through their eyes. You mentioned “muse.” He gathered… what from her? Or she looked to him for something. Hmmm… delicious poem.

        Like

        Reply

Talk to me.