Can't

Old man, young woman. Not quite the tired tale
this time, no messy consequence of age;
no blame, no fault. Just two divergent lives,
lives that could be pinned, not reconciled,
both wanting, both unsure, so bound to fail
even before the tentative exchange.
Leave well enough alone. But what's alone
when the air fizzes with signals maybe sent,
where nothing's off and each box hides a message:
the enemy's not time, but this strange current
that makes them aliens, stripping out the nerve
so nothing's left but impulse and the bones
of what one generation thought as love
and may be still, in spite of what they can't.

Ted Mc Carthy

If you have any comments on this poem, Ted Mc Carthy would be pleased to hear from you.