We always promised
we ‘d say goodbye
when the wind
which blew us together
blew out
and into each day
we tried to cram forever
ever mindful that the eagle
tattooed as if in warning
on your melon cheek
would fly you away too soon.

Too few our days
and nights together
when forever
was what might have been
when yes was in everything we did
and words often unnecessary.
We talked, we touched;
we touched, we talked.
Side by side like comets
flaring in tandem,
we offered a peek
into a different kind of light.

Step for step.
Two steps, three steps.
We danced, we walked,
we even dreamed in step.
On the street, in a park, in bed
like joining rivers we were.

Too soon.
The eagle’s day
has arrived
too soon,
soon enough
to make me stop believing
in forever.

You flew in
on the wings of spring;
now another wind calls you
and soon the leaves will be gone too.

Too soon.

---

John DeAngelo was born and raised in Greenwich Village, NYC.He pursued graduate study at Rutgers’s University with poet Nathaniel Tarn who took him under his tutelage. In 2022, he published My Other Wing, a celebration of Love in both poetry and visual art and is available from LuLu.com as is his latest book of poetry, Conspicuous Denial, completed in 2023.