january 25th

I came home to find

You had taken all my clothes you’d taken

Over the years, and left them on my front steps.

They smelled like you.

Tonight, I try to shed my work self,

My constant energy and stories.

I trim the plant you gave me when you went to cuba.

Its leaves are grey. When I am done,

There are no leaves left,

Only wet green stubs,

The raw insides no longer

Behind what is dead and dying.

I drove the backroads to the airport

Where I used to, all those years ago,

By the cemetery overgrown and broken,

By the small road connecting to Darby,

By the river I promised I would fish,

By the broken bottles where we celebrated

our union victory.

That road always floods, the cars back up,

Red headlights swishing in thick mist,

And they crawl ever so slowly through the bottomless pool,

Almost swallowed, but then miraculously whole and dripping,

They are on the other side. Like a baptism.

Tonight, I was hoping it would rain.
I hear the car wheels chewing maple leaves,

And not spitting them out.