seeking occasionally, with weak desperation
for the light it once (perhaps?) remembers;
stabbing their own nearest, dearest kin
with the cold steel of unrecognition
as if of some betrayal: one day, a glance,
a careful question: ‘Are we… related? ’
And you – you have been singled out
for this unexplained great test
which gods within, without, us have devised:
call upon all you’ve ever learned, lived, won, been gifted:
love these beloved strangers
beyond all bonds, all bounds.