I just saw your face 

– in an airport lounge

Or rather,

           your features expressed on a stranger

At least in side profile anyway –

For three seconds as I walked by.

Who would have thought ?

More than a decade has passed 

Since I rushed home 

And flung open a sketch book, 

To record you for my own safe keeping.

It had seemed ridiculous to me 

That I would choose blue pastel.

It seemed juvenile:

Not so ridiculous now, 

As my memory of you is 

Real – in a sketch since discarded

But pictured – in my mind

– where I traced it from –

My recollection of you

Not of your existence 

Which I can’t see so well now

For that is the bit 

You lost

And tonight

This woman had 

So eternal

And forever gone.