why we must leave each other / a girl in three parts

before:

meeting under low roofed smoke
departure quick and in my memory
trapped like flowers in cut glass
these are my palms you said
they're made for capture
and caught close between you
and the beams that held upright
awnings of the house you used to live in
i found my breath
broken and discarded in my throat


during:

sit still there, sit still
i've got to remember the face you made as a child
because i'm certain it's the one you wear now
make the oh oh oh with your mouth
because i like to see you form your words
and suckle like a babe
or like the young animals
that you surely adopted when you were four, five, six
did you use to breathe so hard as a child?
let me imagine
you as a young runner on new legs
you were just seven and so spry
i'm sure your heart beat the same in your breast
so to make your skin shake and swell and glisten
and now it breaks the beams of your ribs to get out
lay still
lay still and breathe and i'll hear your heart surface and grow full
each beat sounding like a heavy swallow of fresh milk
and dripping and sweating from the glass
i will drink the rest


after:

i woke this morning knowing you had left
in the middle of the night
skipping the steps gingerly
drunk on the thick syrup of night
that leaked through the cracks in the door
you had dressed in the dark
knowing street lamps were enough
and excusing them for waking you
before the sun could rouse us both

you had to run because the night was cool enough for it
air wet and fresh and tasting of overripe plums
the porch to your house seizing and slack-jawed
you ran past the playground
stopping to watch the midnight children
and there you thought of me waking
thought of me running to the window to try to find remnants of you leaving
thought of the hours i'd sleep not knowing you'd gone
and you saw them arch back and forward and off and away
swinging low and long diving into nothing

and thought of me landing, hard