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.