At least a dozen years since we’ve spoken,
and you appear in front of me, with eyes so
pained and loving, regretful that we lost more
than a decade by your choice. You say this all
without voice, and we are miraculously healed—
which is easy to do in a dream. It seems the
years have not intervened, we pick up where
we’d been, but better. Both free of the turmoil
of our forties, then in buckling marriages and
raising little girls. I don’t know why we could
no longer support each other when our lives
were at their most troubled. We had chosen
opposite responses. Your husband had said
it straight, he didn’t love you and wanted out.
Mine would not admit the truth, even to himself,
and displaced his misery with cruelty to me. You
stayed for the children, I left for mine and me.
I couldn’t bear for her to believe this slow drip
was partnership. Was this the camel’s straw?
Having selected diametric action we had
to walk our roads alone? I ask because you
were the one who stopped. You may see it
differently, because I paused. I was so deep
in my depression, struggling to survive, I took
a dive into myself and for a time you might not
have known if I was alive. But I forced myself
to surface with the purpose of connecting,
apologizing for not protecting our fragile cross-
country communication, but assuring you it
was no form of rejection. You never answered.
I sent my handmade cards and photos of my
daughter growing up. I allowed some slack
when I didn’t hear back. You might be tossed
in your own dark boat, unable to do more than
simply float. I waited, sending silent love your
way. Then I learned from our mutual friend you
were swimming just fine. It was only our friendship
that suffered decline. She urged me to reach out,
but I knew there was no need. There was no appetite
left to feed. I can see our relationship was the kind
for a season. I was unsatisfied, and you saw a treason
in my ruthless truth and refusal to pacify, thought it
was a judgment of your choice to stand by. I saw
pattern in your evasive replies, passively
choosing but not being honest. You saw it a race,
thought I surged in the lead because I cut losses
and chose to bleed, while you bandaged your cuts
and denied your need. The criticism you felt was
a trick of your own. We might have addressed it
if you’d managed to grow beyond a habit of hiding
your uncomfortable feelings, fearing confrontation,
unable to trust that those words could be freeing.
I’m left to surmise, but it’s without meaning. Though our
ties may be broken, a wish nests in my chest: that grace
kisses you daily, you wear health’s embrace like a skin,
and when you feel sorrow it’s only a trace. May your
children admire you, surprises inspire you, and this
dream be a sign we’ve shed any hurt we have held.
                        

here, the sun matters. you don’t
take it for granted when fingers numb
in ten minutes at three in the afternoon
in autumn. drifting across the sky,
disinterested, just putting in a day’s work.
he’s blue-collar, hard-hat.

this city is chimney brick and
honking horns; it boils on male
energy. they love their sports
and churches, their manly
edifices of higher learning—all
churning with substrata testosterone.

oh, so alone, being fluid and gleaming,
stirring dreams into my tea
just like a woman, yeah, just
like a little girl. thank god i’m
only a visitor: women die here,
they are absorbed like sewage into the harbor.
in ten days i haven’t seen the moon once.