I need to know

not just for me

but for all waiting hearts,

for all faces pressed to windows

of longing,

for all hands raised in unseen farewell.

We

need to know.

If time's markers disappear,

will we forget to count our hours and days?

Will a calendar become

a curiosity on the wall,

a numeric puzzle we can no longer decipher?

When we pause, and nothing moves

except the inhale/exhale

of our breath,

will memory still recall

this lacuna in our lives?

When our present

becomes our past,

will events disintegrate

into random parts,

move beyond memory's grasp?

If we meet again,

or when,

will our bodies remember

our last touch?

Will our tongues remember

words which came easily

to our lips

though we were speaking them

for the first time?

Will the warmth of hands

travel directly to the heart,

release all the dreams the other dreamed

while we were apart?

Will isolation make us strangers,

greeting each other as if

we had never met?