Poetry: So How Long Has it Been

So How Long Has it Been
By Gopali Chakraborty Ghosh

So how long has it been
Since we last met?
Give or take it’s been thirty years or so I think.
You wear glasses now and grey has invaded your hair and mine.
I am now the Auntyjee I once swore at eighteen, never to become :
crepe de Chines and mikimoto pearls:
And you ?
Are you still in those faded blue Levi’s and a white shirt
Or has corporate Armani taken you over?
Sometimes I think how different life might have been had I taken the
Fork in the road
Which went your way.
Sometimes I see us:
She is nineteen and he is slightly older
Talking animatedly over a shared coffee
They turn to look at me and we exchange smiles.
What happened, I think, to all those dreams we dreamed together?
Or did I just imagine those?
Perhaps one day, we’ll meet
Eyes across a crowded room.
Polite smiles and a “you look well”
And you will go your way and I will go mine;
And when home, I will whisper softly into the night
“I love you ”
And you will hear it’s echo As sleep claims you …,..