No last year’s letter, nor
one from the year before.
The last time this intercalary date
joggled the calendar
Cecil was still here,
breathing the air,
looking across the light,
planning, doing, aware.
But after that
for less than half a year.
Such loss. A life that might
have filled so many four-year cycles more.
And on that twenty-ninth of February
nineteen-eighty-four
you, I suppose, and I the whole day through
probably never thought
once one of the other. But if we did
the thought will have been good.
I know, if ever
your image came to mind it brought
a warmth of innocent pleasure,
as mine surely to you.
And that’s a sweet thing to have knowledge of
looking back from our love.