So Many

So many of those girls I longed for are gone now,
Turned to ash that skin so inexpertly kissed,
Those bodies I ached for-
Gone beyond diaries into flames.

When the years tear up our surface beauty
And throw it away like the bright wrappings on a parcel
What is left is what links all the breathing world:
An empathy, the burried knowledge of our going.

It is so easy to forget how the years pour away
And take out of sequence and before their time
So many who deserve longer
On this lush earth.

Along the streets in which I walked with them
The dawn's clear light varnishes houses and gardens,
And fixes forever under the day's glittering surface
So much half-remembered anguish.