She wanted a recent picture

Because, as she said,

People do change

Just take a look at me

And he gazed at the photo

She had sent and thought

The only changes I see

Are those that time

Has wrought, and those

Are not

Of a variety that had

Rendered her

Vastly Different

From the woman

That he used to know

But she persisted,

The request sounding

Strange to him, because

She swore that people change:

Their eyes, their hair, their very

Personalities and she wanted to know

What had become

Of him since the time

He’d seen her last

On that mountain top

And it always

Fascinated him

What it was

She thought she could discern

From an image

Of an image of an image.

Some pause of self-reflection

Bubbled up, and

He knew why she might want

To see what he’d become

Because to her he seemed

Some distant, floating man

Disconnected from the one

She used to know

And maybe in some reflection

Of his face there could be a clue

As to why and when and how

It all turned into different

Or indefinably ethereal

And of course he laughed

In the way men do

At the deeper introspections

Of the Fairer Sex

And being of the sort,

Like most of them, who didn’t get it

He said, yes, I indeed have changed:

I’ve grown a wart, a third eye,

A wrinkled chin and disposition

And you would not recognize me

At all

To which she replied,

Not trying to hide the sadness,

I know:

Which is why I want to see you

As you are, because

You just made my point for me.

07/27/2005

Posted on 07/27/2005
Copyright © 2025 Ken Harnisch