Them

There is a boy and a girl I know

Their faces impressed upon my mind

I surely know one from the other

But every time I try to describe them

Their features meld.

Her nose becomes his eyes

His lips turn into her fingers.

I never can tell one from the other

How old are they?

I do not know.

Like the nose and the lips

And the fingers and their tips

Their timeline baffles me.

Are they in their teens?

Or are they nearing the winter

Of their lives?

I cannot tell.

Neither can I see.

What I can see

Is that some days

Their smile dazzles the sun to shame

The glow on their faces

Loaned from a full moon night.

The laughter in their voices

Can silence a thousand crickets

Under dark starlit skies

—

One day I saw dried soil on her blouse

A patch of red earth, almost invisible

But as sure as gravity clung

To the soft fabric for dear life

She’s a city girl

I thought.

Where would a patch of soil find her?

The next day

I saw the same unmistakable red

Clinging to the hem of his trousers

Coincidence. I dismissed it.

Another day I saw her walking,

A blade of grass stuck to her hair

Her shirt just a little crinkled

And a little while after

I saw him.

His shirt had bits of green and brown

Smudged across the back

Had he been lying in one of

Van Gogh’s sunflower fields?

Spent and happy?

The greens were the same hue.

Another coincidence?

I couldn’t dismiss it this time.

They never seem to speak

When anyone’s looking.

At times I think

They do not even know each other.

But I see patches

Of a wide vastness

In their hair, their shirts,

And in the tilt of their smiles.

The fabrics they wear

Bear the telltale signs

Of the field they have found

Beyond

The barriers of our cityscape.

And I know

They always meet there.