There never was closure
When that door closed,
Only the silence of my mind
Taking bets with itself,
Do I win? Do I lose?
Only the country song
Knew for sure. Nothing had changed
And nothing could.
Yet I stand before you now
A transformed man,
With thoughts I'd never imagined
In the old elan
Where I hobnobbed with hobgoblins
And painted the house
That shade of red erasure where the pain
Became finality.
Now I walk heart in hand
On the dunes shaped like hips,
Too taken to withstand
The allure that commands
The giddy peace of companionship
Forever innocent
Of condition or occasion for an end
In hearts each day re-turned.
Yet this blessed separation persists
In the different-tinted sky
And cities illumined like crystals
In our eyes,
The unspoken in the silence
Adds that smoky note,
What some would call the centaur's wound,
Love's constance, never lost.
