From Before
Two
In the cool car
sexy
In our agelessness
I look at you.
The family in your green eyes
That comfort me.
The bow of your mouth
That kisses me.
The broad of your shoulders
That hold me.
In silence
I rub your back
I hold your hand.
The expanse of country air
ephemeral tunes floating upward
breathing life
into my
two.
Always in these thoughts
Linger shadows of my past
Only now
No one is as I knew you
Evermore
One.
I have never known profound tenderness as married to you
you wiped my tears,
And called me Sunflower.
I have never felt so authentic as married to you
Loving, compassionate, generous, and safe.
In tiny moments of complicity
Lie Sunday mornings, shared lattes, and Peter Gabriel
And what else?
why can’t I remember more?
Twenty two years of sharing
From closest to farthest apart.
The overflowing obsessive love,
That drained, an empty reservoir
Of all I can’t remember.
Why do I only remember…
…when the end began?
one day we just couldn’t be quiet with each other,
the next was too silent
then there were no words left.
Nights I spent
Staring at ceilings
Examining small cracks
That got larger
unable to find the source.
Of courage.
I have never felt as profoundly alone as married to you
Compromised, restless, disconnected, unloved,
I have never felt as inauthentic as married to you
Angry, bitchy, critical, withholding.
But what I couldn’t do
was done for me
when came the freefall
that left me breathless.
It was the day all I saw in your eyes
Was a reflection of the brokenness of
Us.
And that is all I will ever remember.
Radical Acts of Goddess