We're fifty now, or close to it, Long removed from an island summer of frolic -- and fudge, We talked about God, but experienced forbidden pleasure.

The confusion – and pain -- came later.

On a pier beneath a cold grey sky, we prayed, you cried, we parted. It was half our lives ago.

Since then, there have been other loves -- and losses:

A child, a sister, parents. We’ve kept our marriages, but barely kept in touch.Now when we flirt, it’s with retirement, not each other,

And we mock the way we were half our lives ago.

We could have hated each other -- and perhaps for awhile we did. Despised ourselves, too, though we still don't talk of that. Maybe we never will. Maybe. But I think not. Will there be other times to talk, you and I? And to touch? 

If so, those touches will be different than they were Half our lives ago.

Now when I caress your sleeve, I’m reaching to hold an

     earlier time, Straining to understand who we were, what we've become,

      what we'll be. During a life-defining summer, the best and worst in ourselves

     collided. Are we both the better because of it? It's hard to know. That was half our lives ago.