Celia is an older middle-aged woman, nearly my age, living in Seattle somewhere, last I heard. Some of her friends I ran into, in Colorado a decade or 15 years ago, told me her father died (he was a good man) and her mother decided to move to the beautiful Sea City in the Northwest with her daughter. Celia was young,once, like you were. Like I was.

I actually looked her Seattle phone number up, once, had it on my desk for a year, and I thought about using it . . . to call and chat with her, if I could.

But, then I remembered this. It is copied from the actual carbon paper I kept of things I kept so long ago. It is a promise I probably should never have made. . .

Celia,

========YOUR ORANGE GLOVES

I found a pair of orange
--------gloves
I meant to give to
you, in a manner glib and
carefree
some long, long time ago.

------And again
today I saw them
lying in a box
collecting dust
with other dead dreams
I store there.
-------------So I had to laugh.
because, maybe
it hurt a bit.
----------And I shook my head as I picked them up
and stirred the dust
that dirtied them
clearing
for a breath
only—the vision once I knew.
-----------------------------It doesn’t matter
------------though-----Just now------it----doesn’t matter
Yes,---I remembered,----laughingly . . .
the time that dance
was something
special coming, and the corsage
was difficult to pin
though I had practiced many times
before.
-----And how you worried about your hair
that I might disturb
and the wrinkles
to your dress
my hands just might produce
and the teeter of your feet
on heels
unaccustomed to the earth
as though social condemnation
were a thing
about which to be concerned.
----------------------- But it doesn’t matter now,
----------------------------------------does it?
----------And often I wondered if it were that
your immaturity and
mine
combined
produced friction
to heat the night though
cold was your voice upon my skin.
----------I don’t think you have changed.
-----Have I? ------ Ah, but – that wouldn’t be true.
-------------------Yes, yes, You have changed.

-----So the orange golden
gloves,
so small in my hand
fit yours then,
but would they now?
Would they?

---------------------------You put them in my hand
that time, and I into my pocket shoved them
not to locate them
again for many, many months,
though when I did
It was with amused
surprise.

--------------------------And here they are again
and should be cleaned
before I return them to you.
but
no. I will
thrust them back into
that palace
crumbled small—-----
and tiny—-------
destroyed by things
I could not control,
Place them in the box
where dreams-----die
or live only
in memories
that fade and lose their
sharpness through
the years and distance.

--------Phantom.----Flame.-----Weightless things.
--------------that gather dust.

-------And I have
decided
that someday
I may give them
back to you
---------but when, I can’t
say. Or dare not more
than venture
----------When the Sun rises
and shines somewhere else
or the stars have
a different meaning.
-------------------For when you have them,
---------------------------that will be all
--------------------------of me you can ever have.
-----------I hope.