Isabel Increscent

Isabel,

hey, Isabel,

I am Jeff.

 

Been that way

for the longest time,

but now,

of a sudden,

I am Isabel’s Jeff.

 

Not brand new, at all,

but remade, somehow,

by your becoming,

in a similar,

but less suddenly sudden

appearance in the doorway

of a future that I

will never see,

but into which I will be carried,

in my bits and in my pieces,

in the swirling current

that is you flowing forward.

 

Think now of all the other

everybodys and everythings

lifted and carried

in the flood of you,

in the cresting wave of you,

in the torrent of you,

cutting a new channel.

 

I am Isabel’s Jeff

and you, Isabel,

will carry on without me,

neatly deposited in your wake,

my good-bye smile at you flowing forward,

the last and best of me.

 

You are Isabel

and I am Isabel’s Jeff,

a man of your invention,

who knew you,

and loved you.