INCIDENTAL

It is natural that you should cross my mind.
After all, by cosmic timelines, it isn’t
Very long since we said – or didn’t –
Our mixed goodbyes. You left behind

Bits of baggage, as I’m sure I did, even if
No more than shredded labels – places
Extinct as only pasts can be, with traces
Blotching a scroll or two, an occasional whiff

Now and then on my now settled course.
I don’t dwell, but register the fact
As a watch would at sea, a mechanical act,
Incurious about its source.

And consign the event to the morgue,
Unremarked: a laconic entry in a log.

***