Even the ecru walls betrayed me.
Nothing in my house felt safe.
No thought that did not destroy itself.
My heart entirely broken.
In hindsight my walking out
To your car
Was a terrible imposition
But it was the only thing I could do.
You looked as pale and hollow as I felt,
Like you'd finally released all the love,
And even then you wanted,
Some part of you wanted,
To breathe it in again,
But instead you played the friend,
Repeating back what I said
In tones that caught the pain
But not the condemnation:
The calmness of another realm
Where there was no need for touch
Just time enough to stop the moment
Before we fell into the past
Where we made mistakes together
And call it love. I had to return,
That was your kindness,
And from that point on
Most of what I said to you
Came from the no longer me,
The back and forth of blame
For what happened to our family
For what we both felt separate shame.
But the final trick of time
Is to close the wound
When it no longer needs to heal,
Like that time on the phone,
Myself again, on another coast,
The occasion of course yet another
Stint in jail, and I asked
"What could you do but what you did?"
And your silence
That engulfed the room
Said all there was to say.
