matchbook

handed you the promised coffee with an apology: no sugar, no milk, I’m sorry.

I don’t need those things, you said, and I fell in impossible love with you all over again.

I’d come from my room carrying everything I wanted to happen that didn’t. Now the lobby was too bright and smelled like grapefruits and your face was weary in a way that felt intimate.

You spoke quietly to me in the taxi, then held me twice at the terminal, which I took to mean you loved me too, despite.

*

Many years ago, I loved a man I would have to leave. (Or: I loved a man because I would have to leave.) (Or: Because I had to leave this man, I would always love him.) We went to Walden Pond in late winter and stood at the water’s edge, skipping rocks and speaking of endings.

*

We left that wood-paneled room on an early June night. Your yellow raincoat on the floor. You handed me a letter listing our memories: the fire escape, the park in snow, the lighthouse, the river.

*

An airport farewell in winter. The night before, we laid on a red flannel blanket on the hard ground outside your apartment watching for shooting stars. We never saw one at the same time. Now you kissed me across the console and then again through the driver’s side window before walking off into the terminal.

We always stopped to look back once before leaving. 

*

When I left you for the last time, I bought a one-way ticket to Omaha and flew to the heart of the country on the last day of March with a broken heart.

*

If you ask me about love, I’ll show you late winter light on the farmland—some liminal thing.

*

Another airport hotel, west-facing window. We kissed goodbye in the foyer and then I sat on the corner of the bed, wet cheeks in palms, waited for your return.

I stared down the long empty hallway, walked alone along unpaved road to the diner for eggs and beer.

*

I left my toothbrush on your sink.

*

One last beer by the fire pit at the local tavern on our way out of town.