Since I don't want to trip over your silence
over the gap that is you
in my dark
I will deal how it feels
with you
climbing another impossible mountain
with you gone
away a long time ago.
I don't want my life to be woven or chosen
from pain I am concealing
from fractions of myself
from your voice crying out in your sleep
to another woman
come play in the snow love
but this is not the same winter.
That was our first season of cold
I counted the patterned snowflakes
of love melting into ice
concealing our dreams of separation
I could not bear to write
our names on the mailbox
I could not bear to tell you my dreams
nor to question yours
now this poem
makes those mornings real again.
“You were always real” Bernice is saying
but I see the scars of her pain
hidden beneath the flesh on her cheekbones
and I do not know how many years I spent
trying to forget you
but I am afraid to think
how many years I will spend
trying to remember.