It must have been

It must have been

by dan ankers

It happened once, I’m sure

I just cannot say when

Either way, it is gone now

The past has passed me by

and will again

She was there, I know it

I just can’t say which she, she was

There have been more than a dozen or so

but rarely have I thought

“This is love.”

Sure, once...maybe twice

(And I must admit, the belief was nice)

But fantasies are butterfly wings

Such delicate and pretty things

And care not-a-jot

for the preciousness of jeweled rings

Nor one single tittle for a hand-held vow

declared upon a blanket

beneath the stars

And

Most especially not for the declarations

inspired by the passionate exultations

expelled from the lips of fools

in park-ed cars!

Even so

If such a thing as love exists at all

(and perhaps it does)

the type of which begets the (mad) promise of forever cohabitation

and the subsequent, unending obligation of one-on-one interrelation,

coupled with compromise and religiously practised self-abnegation,

its worth must be very high to those who’ve found their way into its velvety arms

or as to me (it seems), its clutches

because to enter into that type of agreement

seems like a self-inflicted harm

Perhaps I’ve met her

and perhaps I’ve turned her away?

Or perhaps it went the other way?

In reality, I know not.

Not by one single jot or tittle

Or by one tiny speck or spot.