Hadley Hury’s most recent poem to appear here was “Tenth Anniversary Poem, For A Writer’s Wife” (December 2009)

Old Friends
By Hadley Hury

Sometimes after getting together for dinner
Or sometimes for no reason after a long passage of time
While pulling clothes from the dryer
Or waiting at a red light
Or brushing my teeth and glancing in the mirror

I see one of you
Right there
In place of whatever is there

The angle of your chin in laughter
A certain sideways glance
Some particular syllable of speech

Right there
Closer and sharper
Than whatever is at hand

You are there
Perhaps in your most recent incarnation
But often and every bit as vividly
On one of those days forty years ago
Looking up across a table
Or walking side by side in the mist
Of a March afternoon

We move on through time and place
Called both to exotic adventures
And to be familiarly found
Like the scent of daffodils
Such richness never new
The scent of forever
Always so surprising.