The Lovers Share: The danger of regret

But their eyes meet in memory
Where they stand on a dim lit lane
Scarves wound tightly for the blustering cold
His shuffling feet as he tells her its over
Her choked cry of surprise, a frantic desperate
attempt to hold on to him
A fumbling incomprehension of why he does what he does
And the tears come for the girl, alone.
As the sound of a strangers clicking heels animate the cobblestones
-Come back- she cries, but he is gone to the mist of future times
She alone is standing in the clarity of the dim-lit street.
And as the years would sweep them both to a future shore.
They would forge new lives in different paths
becoming ghosts to each other, no more , no less than ghosts.
New loves they would meet and differently imagined children would be born
To differently imagined lives, in differently imagined homes
To differently imagined selves
And one day garbled from underneath his pillow, he would call her name-
her name- an unintelligible sound, like a groan, to his present wife.
And silently, as he is comforted by this present wife , he longs for the smell of wood and vanilla that came from another arm- an arm in the past-
the arm that held him close at night while he talked of the future and of holding her arm forever.
His face is turned on the pillow and light rushes in with his children.
"Good morning dear. Good morning dears. How are you today?"
"Daddy!" they squeal
A conspiratory smile that promises carnal pleasures is the dawn gift from the face of his wife.
And he kisses his present children , and he kisses his wife .And he knows that he is entombed.