"Third Time"

A month has passed and I am still sitting

in her unusual sunlight, waiting to finish

my conversation with him. I am hiding in this space

where I have placed my patience and trust, listening

to the unrehearsed silence and trying to make sense

of the drunken remains. She stays nearby,

quietly finding things to do while watching

my expressions as I wear them for the third time.

Reluctantly taking part in the small talk that has followed,

I have since held my breath as we've become

grown and married thirteen-year olds, running away

to make babies and have affairs. I watch them

as they scatter from the hill I'm still standing on

fourteen years later. Here again is this month, this day,

this February moment in which I have been

caught off guard, forced to stand across from him.

Uncertainty fills the cold space of this early morning

as we have quickly become disconnected from the things

I may have said to her long after the darkness had arrived,

the words I may have written, the thoughts I may have had.

Though I am unsure why I should be patient

after six years of searching for this new focus,

somewhere I am still waiting for the end of winter

and wondering if every day I would feel desperate

for this outside source of strength, disappointed

and resigned. I remain frozen in her sunlight,
afraid to lose the sound of him breathing.

Back to Poetry