Graduates,
(class of some odd year),
we have xx-ed out so many
days off the calendar together that
we counted it by the years,
labeled it with names
and numbers that shaped
memories into time
instead of remembered images.
Instead of counting time
by the seconds, we let it
zoom by, our own toy race
car counting inches
to the finish line.
We did not stop to
think that maybe someday,
our time would not line
up orderly, single-file;
that our lives will
not be shared by hourly
school bells and marked
monthly by holidays and
time spent away from
each other.
Until the end, we
knew that saying
goodbye was sad, but it
was routine, tiring; never would we
think that it could be fleeting,
as if our goodbyes sang
like the whistle of the wind
already moving
past our bodies, anticipating.
And we've been
waiting to fly for so long that
we don't even realize
it is happening; that the
universe is splitting into
our own personal pieces
for us to call our own and
for us to let it sink, melt into the lines
on the aging palms of
our hands.