There is a wall between us.

I will not compare this to famous history, of empires and dictatorships, scale, sweat, blood.

You will not see this demarcation of where I end and you start

It is perhaps nothing but a fat space

But distance can be a wall, when it is insurmountable

No one dies in trying to get across.

We throw up our arms bearing white lies

Defeated in our mutual respect:

I will watch you cry (I’d rather leave the room)

And silence steals your tongue (it cannot touch your eyes)

We know. I know, anyway. You might have felt, informally (unconfirmed)

I will never know if you know because questions form a ladder that i – we – would rather not climb.

Between us are gap bricks, heaped and towering mutually exclusive beliefs.

Except bricks can be broken and do not resist anguish like that time.

*

We do meet, often. The wall runs on then falters

into a common garden,

fruits planted on solidarity afternoons.