(for D.G.)

“There is no object so foul but that intense light cannot make it beautiful.”  — Emerson

When we were young we stood too close to each other
to let light in. We huddled with our eyes closed.  Saw
everything by touch. Knew ourselves and each other
only by the feathers of our breath.  Called
the dark our day and were done with it,
called in pain, named ourselves frustrated,
could smell nothing but our wasted potential.

The details we did not see then
stand up for themselves now, declaring
that we were sculptures.  We aren’t the shadows
we accepted then, never were; we were full
and solid, palpable through our eyes if we had tried.

We could not have known this then,
but now, only now, now that distance
and day allow us to pore over our fragile
and mobile pasts, can we scan the slippery
and live velvet of what we were.  Not foul,
not terrible; back then we were so lovely
as to stop time itself.  It stops now
for us, now that we can see.  We can say it:
we were enough, were beautiful,
and we would have known that then
if we could have stepped away from ourselves
long enough to let the light come in.