Disparue

I had thought to write
a mutual on-line friend
to ask about her.

After two months of (mostly)
silence, letters unanswered—

I was uneasy,
wondering what had happened
or what I had said.

"I'm not asking for details,"
I'd say, "just tell me that she

is well and happy;
that this silence only means
that she is busy."

But I haven't written, and
I will not write, to our friend.

There is some justice
in her silence, a karmic
return for all the

letters that I never wrote
to people who were my friends,

not from anger or
because of resentments real
or imagined, but

just because I could not see
that time and the moment pass.

I hope and believe
that it is the same for her;
she bears no ill-will

and will write when the time comes;
as I have written, years late.

Virginia Woolf
said "I have lost friends, some by
death, others by sheer

inability to cross
the street." I am no better.

We see always our
good intentions, and thus do
we find ourselves good:

we will write that letter—soon.
But somehow five years go by

and the letter still
has not been written, and now
it never will be.