Possible Futures

Remember that night we sat in the car
on the ridge above the city,
listening to “our” songs on the radio
and looking out at the motorway lights?

They shone in the haze like a runway
- exciting, inciting, enticing us to flight,
towards the adventures
of our lives.

Those lights stood dancing in the heat,
forming a shimmering orange arrow,
curving gracefully to a fearless infinity,
pointing to the world out there.

I wondered then
just where that road would take us.
Where we could - and would – go. Together.
The wrong question, of course.

Your wanderlust was too strong,
and you were in a hurry, it seems,
to get anywhere else but here
- and with anyone else but me.

I find myself back there again -
alone. Songs on the radio different now,
but the lights still tantalise just the same –
towards possible futures, though none of them with you.

Vigil