One Dusk

I’ll come outside

With the trash and the terrier,

The leash and drawstring tangled,

As I close the back door against the pineneedle light

In Mom jeans and a bralette,

Sweated through from Sunday chores,

Bare feet patio-dirty,

I drag along the ground

You will be standing there in black,

With your travelpro carryon,

Victorious and emerged from your

most trusted fear:

The one you put your faith in.

The kind man who talks to me without trouble

has no idea I wait for you

Without a word,

Bending backward, almost breaking,

toward the summer of us.

In the gone, you have run like prey,

and softly erased white,

Oceans of our vibrancy.

I hold all this nothing

and trip on the asphalt

under its weight.

Past the dumpster,

the couple with the patio lights

waves goodnight to me