The Orphan Ache

Your shoulders do not brush my shoulders,
Not even on a streetcar by accident.
And now I cannot recall whether your brown eyes
Were chocolate or spiced copper or sable.
Year after year more details vanish.

Seventeen years later
I am reminded of you regularly
But I do not remember.
Oh, the perplexing irony
and the resulting shades of the truth.

Yesterday a sweet perfume
Was swept by the wind into my nostrils.
Instinctively, I looked around for you,
And instead saw a grandmother step into a cab.
It still stings every single time.

Will it take a lifetime
To heal all of my wounds?
The scars are precious --
A tangible proof that you really did exist
In flesh and not just in a child's mind's eye.