the spent goodbye poem

wherein the heroine gives love to the fire.

it didn't take long for ideal to perish
a decade of disappointments, expectations
beyond rational limits.

once she got into the real world, isolated
from a cozy boudoir and capturing oubliette
the dark passions becoming at once the mirror's

and her own, see me, love me for
me ness. heh ness. choke on it,


you say she loves me but that is just
the slide of the needle, the pierce of the fang.

and when he says he loves her, she believes
he means he loves the only way she knows how
but he loves the only way he knows how.


belief is a phantom riding a river, her veins are boats.


*


last nite i sat at the flames
while you danced with the woman
you brought, while you drank yourself
into stupor, while you slept in a room
next to your son, aching for normality
while you paced the rooms that haven't
changed since you left.

your stories swirled around me, the witness
to your dive, look ma, look at me i'm falling
i watch the water swallow you, calculate
the number which will satisfy , pronounce
the score when you surface, always closer
than i expect, but further than i can reach.

the flame eats, she feeds her tears
to the night. the next day he calls
and she says no, she writes him no, he calls
she says no. please. no. he does not call
he doesn't write. he moves in with another
woman or with her and she becomes

the one that's lied to instead of ignored.
he does both he does neither she asks how
can you think of me that way what makes
you think i am so cold. your fingers are freezing
he says. you have your own life. you mean

you wanted me to share it, i just want
to go sailing, see my girl in every
young face that goes by
those hot bods
that promiscuous leer i jettisoned
for children i want
to use it
for me
now

she says go. yeah oh.

what's the matter
he asks.
what could you possibly mean , she implies.

the girl at the party, the girl
on the street, the girl
you swept off of feet. why did you
become a drunk, an addict, suicidal, stop
sleeping with your wife? because
i wanted
someone else
and in that moment
the truth of it comes bearing
down on him, he leans back
curves his arm over
his eyes, it was not

her doing
it was the way orion
is coded in his genes, it was him
but what can he do about it? should he be
unhappy
because of a vow?

the trap is sprung, she realizes
too late. she cannot help that she wants
a man to be hers but she had that once
so why whine now she left him?

if she wanted romance, this is the stuff of it.

quietly, she takes out a knife, she's hungry
for her heart. he is both relieved
and excited. perhaps the hunt
is not over yet. he sees a flicker coming

from the edge of the yard, a glow stick swamp light
beckons to him. it's a dog with a collar, the dog's
name is boss. he follows it into the trees.
she watches him step into the darkness

and nibbles the tasty morsel on her fingers.
from the east, the geminids burn up the sky