Degrees of Separation

The weather lounges between

winter and spring these days.

The gray humps of snow that will last until April

cast their shadows on the salt bleached sidewalk.

Day rests until it breaks, and light stains

the below: two scooters in love,

their handlebars tangled. A bright cardinal landing

on the sagging power line. Weeping willows

birth new branches. Pale green streams.

When I rise, woken by the edge of an argument downstairs,

I put the coffee on. Listen to the pumping grounds push

through water and the rise and fall of their voices. The toddler wails

a consistent harmony. I don’t mind this noise,

or the creaking of the new neighbors through the wall. I like knowing

I’m still alive. Sometimes I feel like a silhouette,

only visible in outline. Things orbit me, I stay still.

I stay still. Things enter my shadow.

Hometown

I am better at losing things now.

Bare feet clutching shards of glass

in grass. Geese take their night journey.

Things disappear without noise.

Feet clutch shards of grass.

Summer fires leave empty holes.

Things disappear without noise

and time wipes away all anchors.

Holes and plots burned empty

lined by wrinkled trees perfumed with rain.

Time uproots my anchors;

I thought it would stay static as I moved.

Rain’s perfume settles in tree wrinkles.

Wind licks hair from forehead.

Nothing stays static. I move.

I get better at losing.

Before the Leaving

We rang in the new year every night, crowded like sardines

or lovers at the tip of Smoker’s Hill, sharing a Foster’s

because it was cheapest and shittiest

and we believed in penance. I don’t have a problem

yet, he told me then, turning the blue can in his hands,

condensation glazing his palms.

He left in the middle of the night. No goodbye.

I leave in the early hours, watching the morning

drip in. Cows in our wake. Gray blurs on green.

Only proof in the wet ring of his glass.