Between my casual passing through your mind and
your persistence in my wakeful sleeping conscious
a rose opens
a moonless night vanishes into twilight
a bee trapped behind the garden glass door
fails to grasp why it cannot reach its flower
There is in this solitude a stability no union offers
there’s an honesty in this loneliness
an unspoken promise
a warmth that enters me gently like the seeping
heat of my morning coffee
I find your scent between my scattered papers
your raining sadness between my breasts
I see your sorrowful eyes in our encounters,
unhooking their blazing gaze from mine
I am in your parting a woman
learning how to forgive herself for your cruelty
My hands test the dampness of my plants’ soil
and I remember not to water your memory.
