Remembering

Now it takes both of us to find the word that will finish

the sentence. “It begins with a B,” you say,

and I think, Perhaps, watching as my mind turns mirror

A formal face—no. Not formal. Solemn. No, grave.

She is older than her years, this girl. Thus, B . . . ungraspable B.

“Boethius, you say . . . Boethius?” “No . . . Balthus,” we say

in one voice. Together we smile and touch hands lightly.

We’ve done it again. The world returns to its fullness.

Out the window a branch of white flowers

brightens beneath the sheltering, repetitive descant of a dove,

and for a moment, I ignore

the unchanging pallor of that still child’s face.