Hide This For Me

by Daniel McGinn

Save it for later like a box of candy
we’ll deal with one piece at a time,
or maybe we won’t, maybe it will sleep
with us in memory’s cold stream,

river stone smooth and eroding,
gathering moss, gripped by water
weeds waving goodbye in a rippled river,
sucking its life from the sun.

Hide this for me
like a fetus I won’t know about,
like a memory that grows up
to be something I wouldn’t recall,

or recognize if it sat down
right next to me at a bus stop,
or church service, or if we caught
the same flight, the same row,

where we said hello, and excuse me
before we disappeared in the clouds
and flew away, and were never seen
or heard from again.