Elegy of Two Candy Bars

it was a moonless autumn night
when I went to meet the girl
at the corner of a deserted street
where traffic light swayed to the wind

a lone child came walking toward me
holding a box in his slender arms
he stopped in front of me and whispered
that candies in the box were to be sold

from his small hands I did buy
two chocolate bars and watched him go
into the darkness beyond the neon lights
as I waited for her in deepening sorrow

hours went by and she never came
and I went home to an empty room
holding a chocolate bar in each hand
thinking of her gazing into the void

many years have gone by and now I know
the lonely child with the box was only I
who came searching from a distant time
for me who was lost in the autumn night

"Wilderness Walk" Photograph Sketch by Jewel Martin