To a Redheaded Woman Glimpsed from a Bus

In the universe next door we met
a dozen years ago on neutral ground
and touched and kissed without a minute lost.
Our auburn children entered (one of each)
freckling our days with laughter as we edged
into a life of comfort, love, and lust.

Love comforts still. But now for passion must
my dreams seek darkhaired women vaguely pledged
to distant husbands, while your fingers reach
for bearded grayflecked men? How dear the cost
of starting new? How much of what we've found
must fade to capture what we covet yet?

Listen: universes don't come cheap
except the one we have and need to keep.

[Originally published in Mahattan Poetry Review, 4, Winter 1984-85.]
Copyright (c) 1984 by Alan C. Elms.