A white moon-stain marks the morning sky.
Yellow topaz light streams through the trees.
You never would have come with me
although you always brought coffee.
Back then, I held your fingers as we walked to your car,
you telling me about distant streets and mosques.
These are the fingers that cut, that healed,
after you told patients with gunshot wounds to hope.
You were astonished when I told you we would have
to live separately. Too many trips to Atlantic City.
You did the pro-bono work I asked you not to do
and the pandemic killed you. You were kinder than me,
more self-sacrificing. You gambled with everything:
light and dark, stars and moons. In love with excitement,
you were unfaithful to me. When you were young,
the streets of Istanbul enticed you to wander.
A trauma surgeon, you secured a residency in the States.
Had to leave, they said, because you partied
with the wrong party. As a medical student,
you spent way too much time at the Soviet embassy.
I held your fingers as we walked to your car.
For so many years, I’ve loved you.
Now I think of you here, on the path by the river:
ten years together and ten years apart.
