now I remember the tangled
clothes, piled on your studio table,
blue jeans and flannel shirts
you once loved ripped into
strips,
and how I left the remnants
untouched, closed the door
so not to see.
how I convinced myself
your hands smelled of turpentine
even when you could no longer paint,
when every wall between us
held blank canvases,
screaming white like sunlight
against shaded windows.
how you held my hand each night,
as we watched sit-com’s
weeks before your
planned escape to another house:
an old barn with weeping willow
at the end of a dusty road.
after you left, I finally
gathered the torn clothes,
and arrived at your new home,
your once-hidden woman
pulling weeds in the garden,
pretended not to see me—
the ex-wife, cradling our
heap across the tattered lawn,
and I ignored her too,
sad that we looked so much alike
she could have been a sister.
I knocked at the backdoor,
calling your name,
and it felt strange in my mouth,
like practicing words
in a foreign tongue,
The hushed kitchen, shadowy
as an empty glass, with a pine
table, only my hands
on the scuffed surface,
holding your cast-off self,
a bundle of past time.
