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She said, “I have to go across the sea.”
I asked that she might stay a while with me.
“I'd like to, but I really have to go.”
I asked again, but she again said no.
I didn’t know how long she meant to stay;
She only said, “I have to get away.”
She had to think; she had to clear her head;
Was she, was I, were we prepared to wed?
She flew away and left me home to wait,
To dream, yet feel a captive of some fate
That turned on what she’d see and what she’d do,
On how she’d think and feel when she was through.
I got a postcard every now and then
From London or from Paris, on the Seine.
Their dates were always many days ago.
Was she still there, in Rome, or in Bordeaux?
She never wrote, “I wish that you were here.”
She never said, “I really miss you, dear.”
I counted days and weeks as they went by,
Not thinking I would have to count so high.
When no more postcards came, I asked her friend,
Who had to tell the truth and not pretend.
She said she’d been back home a week or two.
“I’m quite surprised she hasn’t called for you.”
And so, I called with much anxiety
To ask my love why she’d not talked with me.
“I had a lovely trip and time to ponder
If, in time, I thought that we’d grow fonder.
“I really didn’t miss you, didn’t know
How you’d have viewed the sights I saw, and so
I had to think our love’s not meant to be;
There is no ‘us,’ but only ‘you’ and ‘me.’” |
