I
missed sadness because I no longer missed you,
how
emotionally counterintuitive it was
as
my citizenship in the nation I made of you
gradually
lapsed. I woke some other
place
with lakes and blue skies and rush hours
and
strangers I worried about. But no you.
No
ages of you. No your name three times
when
I walked somewhere or lay down at night
to
bargain with sleep. No you
falling
from my mouth everywhere I went.
No
you anywhere to be seen.
A
secret to keep. And mostly I did,
even
beside other women who asked
with
the privilege of their bodies
if
you had ever existed and what did you do
and
did you have a name I’d share
and
had you been good to me
but
I never gave you up. I left the last of you
to
be lost in the fog inside me.
Napping
in bomb craters, haggling
over
debts I couldn’t deny were mine,
memorizing
every month’s horoscope.
It
seemed then the days
you
had left me stained in sadness
were
like that. Good apples on back order from God
and
the steaks full of blood
you
taught me to love, rationed.
At
least I told myself this,
thinking
of all the never you were.
But
there were limits and lengths
and
limits again. There were
songs
inside the fog inside the world.