My home is her summer home
and for years we crossed the same streets,
swam at the same beach,
dreamed our dreams under roofs
just down the road from the other’s.
Did I tread over your footprints in the sand,
following you as the sun set on yet another
humid January evening?
Did you ever catch a glimpse of me
at the supermarket, scanning your mother’s
groceries, asking for her rewards card?
Did I look at you, catch your eye, and did we
blush and quickly glance away,
shy and sweet and only sixteen?
It’s strange to think that
we could have known each other since childhood
await each summer for our reunion
but instead it has taken us all these years to meet
and I’m not sure why – was it planned this way,
written in the books that we should pass unnoticed
from day to day, leave fragments of ourselves
for the other to collect at the local op shop,
sense déjà vu in a history lecture because –
haven’t I seen that girl before?
A ghost of summers past.
The waves and salty air of Seaford pier are
yours, and mine
this suburb is a treasure to me and
it only makes me glad
that you are a frequent visitor here
and have grown beside me
with each new year.
