Terri Simon

No matter how many hours
I’ve watched you –
talking, driving, clacking a keyboard, sleeping –
I’ll never be able to trace
all the spirals and pathways
of your frontal lobe.
I’ll never know, really, why
you say the things you do,
the sweet cider of it,
the gravel shards of it.
And if I can’t know you,
the one whose hours
have turned to years beside me,
whose limbs have entwined
with mine in the dark hours,
then how am I to know
anyone, to understand
the small places, the peeled
layers, the sliced fingertips
of anyone? And who am I
to judge, to place a feather
on the scale,
to weigh your soul or mine?