HARVEST

 

HARVEST

Ten feet from what was ours, I stand outside
beneath the harvest moon, swollen and white.
I must be mad. The window throws a wide
rectangle of warm light into the night. Two silhouettes: your shoulders, and her head
inclined toward you. Her eyes shine—I can guess
the way they hold you, as mine did instead
not long ago. Cruel heart, or cruel excess
of hope that brought me here? I cannot see
straight anymore. My worst fear finds a home
in this tableau: the two of you, carefree,
while I remain the watcher, left alone. Her laughter drifts. I taste the salt of sweat
remembered on your skin, the way you’d press
your open mouth against my throat. And yet
I pray sleep finds me soon. Why did I dress
and come to this address to watch love turn
from singular to shared? Once two, now one.
The ground beneath my feet begins to burn
with all the ordinary things we’ve done. I do not know what words I’ll find to say
when, finally, I turn my back and go.
Who will I blame in this protracted play
of pain and exit? Brave, but broken so
I crave the very earth that holds me still—
your absence like a drug I can’t refuse.
The moon is witness. It will not reveal
how empty I have grown, or how I lose.