Pocket Bible

On the flyleaf of a pocket Bible she had given me,
a girl in college I had come to know wished me well.
That’s all.  Just, “I wish you well.”
But she wasn’t pretty and she wasn’t you.
She was short and stout to be sure, but she had that same joyfulness,
that same playfulness in her eyes as I’ve seen so often in yours.
Maybe it was only the joy of her youthfulness, maybe more.
Whatever it was, whatever its source or nature, I passed--
as I have so many times since.
I loved you more than was good for me.
And I kept meeting you over the years.
You were everywhere: in novels, movies, and poems,
restaurants, hospitals, trains, planes and bars:
Walking toward me in the late afternoon
on a tree-lined walkway near the library,
or appearing out of nowhere in a boiling hot parking lot;
there at my door collecting for the newspaper,
smiling at me across a dinner table.
You were everywhere except there with me.
I don’t take your picture out everyday.
I don’t need to.
You didn’t write your name in a pocket bible
But your eyes are the same.