Known and Knowing

For Megan.

It is a strange thing to know a person

and stranger still to be known.

Undressing our fears and faltering hopes.

Admitting weakness and selfish intent.

Stripping away all artifice,

all the perfumed unguents with which
we disguise our souls.

To reach out across the chasms that separate us.

Alone in our mountain redoubts, safely dead.

To touch, to grasp, to cling

For to slip is to fall and in falling we are lost.

Oleh Saya