The circle is drawn in eyeliner on the napkin
And you tell me that is how you see the world; how you see time.
Everywhen, you explain, is a diameter’s width from anywhen.
We’re at three o’clock now, for example, the pair of us, and
You draw the stick figures, one of them waving.
We’ll always be here, you say, even when time moves on.
Even as the hands sweep by…
Even if one of us winds up at nine, the other at half eleven.
We will always be here at three.
And it’s not mad, I assure you, forgetting to worry that you’ve now told me how it ends,
We’ve all got our ways of dealing with impermanence,
With loss,
With moving on before we’re ready because the cogs have their own motion,
And it is all we can do to keep up.
I could explain how I deal with it myself.
I could draw you my own diagram.
But it would just show us here, in this bar, over these drinks,
In these words,
Now.
So very many years later.
Mike Hickman (@MikeHicWriter) is a writer from York, England. He has written for Off the Rock Productions (stage and audio), including 2018's "Not So Funny Now" about Groucho Marx and Erin Fleming. Poetry and prose has been published in EllipsisZine, Dwelling Literary, Bandit Fiction, Nymphs, Flash Fiction Magazine, Brown Bag, and the Daily Drunk (amongst others!).