by Patti Taylor
I wanted time to lean toward us,
to slow at the sound of your name.
I believed in the room we were making,
its corners soft with light,
its hours warm between us
Minutes opened their hands,
stretching, spilling into afternoons,
nothing asked to be finished,
everything too fragile to grasp
I thought this was what staying meant,
the quiet accumulation of ordinary love,
the way breath folds into breath,
the way hands linger without question.
If words could hold,
I would have tied the hours here,
bound them with the weight of my wanting,
stitched them to your name
so they could not wander
You turned from me to a colder light,
its glow brushing your face away from mine.
You said it’s nothing, of course I don’t, it just appeared,
it’s only images, only passing
as if I were foolish to feel it, foolish to think it.
You brought their afterimage to my skin
and called it ours.
It was never mine
Time returned
the truth you edited.
It set it down between us,
cold as glass
Time returned
the years I gave you.
They do not fit me now;
there is no reclaiming them.
No beginning again.
No warmth left to start over.