You were almost apologetic when you said it today.
We were having coffee, checking e-mail, & the grapefruit
Juice shone with pulp. We were being married
& it felt like marriage, our lives gliding in laughter
As I looked past you at the dead autumn garden.
No, not dead, but the maple tree preparing
For solitude or something thickening with silver.
            Five words
Spoken inside the ordinary voice of our days,
Days we do not count. Don’t do the math is the white flag
We swing at the coming dusk. We must be
Funny about some of it.
            Five words
Stalk my future with you. Winter is happening in the garden
While the hawk eats a rat’s liver & jays search
For a language that will last when we have vanished.
I was talking to you about my life & that I liked it
Finally. I had reached the wound of my art,
Aware that there was more love at the bottom.
I was scratching an itch on my cheek
When you said those five words. I stopped
Speaking & held my small white cup
As if I could look down into another face
Without you knowing.