Published: April 1, 2010

A neon yellow light shines brightly

Out through your garage.

I’ve driven home from towns and bars,

And think about

Your fractured home.

You’re packing bags

And pulling strings

And dusting off the ghosts of Sundays past

And morning sex

And things you used to hold.

“It’s impossible,” you once told me “to be lonely in a place like New York.”

This time tomorrow you’ll be gone,

I realize, standing outside my car,

Watching you put

Old catcher’s mitts in bags.

You’ll leave Michelle, who’s only four.

And Leigh, who just turned two.

I think of this, I shake my head

And wonder what they’ll do.

Yours is the only light on for miles, miles…years and years.

“It’s very late” you say to me

And smile through the dark.

“It is, I know,” I smile back

and watch you eye the stars.

It seems like you’ve been here in this

Garage for weeks on end. You’ve been here since I left at noon

And now the moon shines in.

I watch you: broken, tired and scared, and look up my driveway, to my door.

“Goodnight” I say, and turn back in

“Good luck with where you go.”

“Hey thanks,” you sigh and look around

“I’ll miss this place, you know.”

“It’s just that she and I are not

The same as we once were.

We’ve tried and tried, but nothing comes.

But man: I do love her.”

I understand. I swear. I do.  My home is fractured too.

A tear, a frown, come from your face.

I leave you to your work.

And go back in from whence I came:

My house, and all its hurt.

Your voice rings now from in my head:

I listen to you move.

You’re looking for an artifact

From years, years gone too soon.

A cap, a gown an old, lost book:

These things you’ll take with you.

Without a word—with just a glance

I turn around and go.

Now’s not the time for words or hands

We know

We know

We know.

I climb my stairs, walk past the man

I’ve loved for seven years.

He’s sleeping on the couch again

What for? They sprint:  the years.

None of this is mine or yours or ours; everything in this town is as flimsy as your cardboard.

I walk upstairs and shut the light

And start to go to bed.

Before I do, I turn and walk

Towards you, I see your head

Through my window I watch and stare

At you as you turn in.

The light shuts off, the darkness comes

I stop. I smell the wind.

Your door slams shut with anger, loss

Or fear of something new.

It’s quiet now, here on our street

That brought me once to you.