Do I Know You, Lady?

by john valley

Do I know you, lady?
With the light brown hair and deep blue eyes and smile like a sunburst sweeping over mountaintops in the first fresh blush of morning light—
Do I know you?

How do I know you, let me count the ways.
My childhood friend and baseball pal, my sweetheart, lover, wife and mother of my firstborn child, confessor, helper, teacher, soulmate, all these things—
Why do I think I know you there?

Do I know you, lady?
Those secret thoughts, regrets and hopes and long forgotten memories that never did you share with me, and moments when I catch you staring at the sea--
I want to know you, better than I do.

Let me in!
Don’t make me stand out here with just these tattered shadows of your soul that hint at greater vistas deep inside than Balboa would have dared to see--
Oh, let me in!

Words cannot speak.
I search in vain within your worried eyes for messages that do not come across this gulf that sunders me from you and you from me, and now I see this curséd destiny--
To see you always other and much less than you would be.

Do I know you, lady?
Do I know you there?
Come sit with me and talk with me and tell me who you are.
Or don’t, if this most treasured longing of my heart is naught but fantasy.
I cannot bear to know that knowing, still I cannot know.

Do I know you, lady?
Do I know you, there?