FAMILIAR STRANGERS

we are strangers still
despite all we know
and all we share --
despite the joint accounts
and both our names on the deed
and the photographs of you and i together
taken here and there
on this trip or that gathering,
despite our foibles
and our farts
and our failures
and all we've learned to tolerate
and all our promises
and kindness
and all we like to think we have in common
there are secrets
kept for the sake of diplomacy,
truths hidden,
cards we cannot show
lest we disturb this loving collaboration

for though we are one
we are two
and always will be