If I wear my hair pulled back,

dye it purple like I used to then,

will you recognize me?

What if I trade my cowboy boots for tennis shoes,

retrace my steps back to that girl I used to be,

will you know me?

If we find each other again

at the edges of an unfamiliar desert

deep in the center of an unknown country

will you stop to speak to me?

Or will you wander past as though we’d never met

as though we’d never loved

or lived inside each others’ pockets?

Will the lost pieces of myself that I wear across my shoulders

conceal the fact that the girl you used to know

has become intangible?

Or will you see beyond, to the body of light

you swore even death could not disguise

Lauren McLean Ayer is a San Francisco-grown poet and writer who recently moved to Santa Fe to find peace in the desert. Her poems have appeared in Gargoyle Magazine, Santa Fe oneheart, Adobe Walls, and online.