From Exile

Arnold R. Highfield

I wake and sense a stranger
in my room, standing before the broad window,
taken by the River Charles.
In measured steps I move past this exile
now returned; he keeps a back to me,
a luffing sail in my lee.
As I shave
he appears behind me,
nearly glows through the bathroom’s mists,
an uncharted moon rising steadily
over a shoulder.
“Your hand holds a razor as I do,”
says a voice, perhaps his.
He offers me a comb.
“I am grateful,”
he lifts a gentle hand to me,
“to have caught up to you.”
The pairs of morning eyes
narrow deep in the mirror to a single thought

Copyright © Arnold R. Highfield