The Way We Are, by Sylvia Cohen

The Kiss, by Constantin Brancusi (Romania) 1907

​The Way We Are 
 
Our young love was gently carved
out of soft beige stone,
 
bodies a thin line’s width apart,
contours fitting perfectly.
 
We had a secret language
gifted by the eternal stars
 
when, in the brushed velvet
night the moon was so high
 
she slanted silver fronds across our skin,
lit the hidden places of our hearts.
 
Years became frantic, caught us up
in a thousand whirling eddies
 
that fractured our speech
into the ordinary sounds
 
of the day by day.
The lines are wider now.
 
Holding hands as we sit or walk
we talk of how the apples are,
 
should we buy them again,
what to do today, what tomorrow.
 
When one of us is left alone
to finish our eternity,
 
who then will speak
the language of apples?
 
Sylvia Cohen

Published in Between the Lines (London City Lit anthology, 2019), Sylvia Cohen is a retired psychotherapist living in London with her husband, near (at least in the same country as) her three children and their families, ten grandchildren—who never cease to amaze. She has been writing poetry for about six years.