This was for the best, you said, and I think
you were a little disappointed I agreed,
nodding against your shoulder in the parking lot.

A year since we met last, that day I loaded
a few last boxes into the Jeep, kitchen things
and what camping gear I had left: we went
to sign some paperwork. The house was yours,
the desert mine. I slept curled up
in the Jeep’s back end at an I-5 rest area,
milk crate corners in the ribs, our last hurried hug
still burning my shoulder blades. You were
opaque and smiling, hurrying to play tennis.

Today we ate lunch, the table between us
formica, brown, a year across, nothing changed
except for everything. We smiled easy, chuckled.
Two years ago I would have eaten from your plate.

Today I said I really ought to head home.

I remember a time you and I were waking
in a campsite at the base of the Eastern Sierra
and the sun rose, Whitney bathed in alpenglow
as Lone Pine Creek sang near our heads

(You showed me the new car you’d bought
a few months back, parked in the shade
beneath the loquat tree)

I remember a time the dog stomped me awake
at the crest of Walker Pass: we left the tent
and roasted red chiles on last night’s coals

(You would tell your parents I had said hello)

I remember standing on the beach in San Francisco
storm coming in across the ocean, sky all pink
and silver, sky the color of a new-caught salmon
shocked into silence, I watched you watch me

(I was glad we did this too)

And all the last months good for us, all
the pains no longer shared, all that has passed
since we diverged, all of it recapitulated,
telescoped into my turning walk away.

1. 
   Miguel 2009 07 15 at 7:02:32 am

   That was beautiful, but very hard for me to read. My own separation, both from my wife and someone afterwards, is too recent. But so many of the same feelings, images, memories…

2. 
   jason 2009 07 15 at 1:15:12 pm

   Poignant and moving.  Too real and personal for those who have lived…

3. 
   ignobility 2009 07 15 at 5:31:42 pm

   Once again, very nice work.

4. 
   Isabel 2009 07 15 at 9:42:36 pm

   oh, honest and sad and beautifully done.

5. 
   Phoenix Woman 2009 07 16 at 7:35:10 am

   Sometimes I wonder whether we humans have evolved sufficiently to have relationships to match our lifespans.  I reckon that “until death do us part” was a lot easier to accomplish is societies where menopause kicked in at around thirty, if you survived that long.

6. 
   Chris Clarke 2009 07 16 at 10:55:01 pm

   Thank you all.

   Isabel, was wondering where you’d got to. Hi.