Poem for a Man I Thought I’d Never See Again

I knew a man once whose grandfathers were preachers
and whose sister was a beauty queen.
He lives in Nebraska, and because of him
I’ve stayed out of Nebraska for sixteen years.
I thought the feeling might be there, and if I found it again—
what marrows were sacrificed to it,
as one offers the innermost parts to the gods!

And what more would we have burned.

Then I saw him in Georgia, at a conference for writers.
We even touched—a forearm on a shoulder,
a wrist across a back, like skeletons embracing.
The feeling wasn’t in my body.
Nor was it in his body or in the space between us.
I was surprised, for I’d thought it might be,
and I’d thought maybe I wanted it back.
It was just that I’d never seen anything like it,
what it made him do to his wife.