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Christopher Allan

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The lost purse

                       knowing how way leads on to way...
                                                                                   Robert Frost


What if it was raining and I'd dropped in
for a T-bone and a dry - what if you'd been there
unwinding from a conference - what if you'd lost
your purse and I'd overheard the commotion

and had helped you, paying the bill and finding
a taxi - what if I'd asked for your number
and you'd written on my hand - what if I'd called
and we'd taken in a show - what if that was the beginning

of something and six months later you'd moved in - what if
we married and your father then saw me
through college - what if I became a lawyer and hit forty
running and rich - what if we emigrated and found ourselves

deep in Connecticut - what if you decided to put on jeans
and breed horses and they proved a sure bet - what if
we had three children - two girls and a boy - and they had
your dark eyes and my dimples - what if they thrived

and won scholarships to Harvard or Columbia - what if
I entered politics on the republican ticket and got elected
first time - but what if you simply paid and left - no purse lost
just a possible future - what if the gods had another story -

what if you walked into the dark - disappearing like a dream
before dawn - would you look back once - see
someone watching rain run blurs down the window -
finding himself both happy and sad at the same time?

Page(s) 13

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