THE SMOKE CLOCK
THE SMOKE CLOCK
I bought, as always, for two, two nights' worth of smoke,
it's eight thirty, and your chair breathes empty beside me,
you, who used to come early, never late, like rain
that knows by heart the window it's summoned to;
now it's turned two, and nothing of you remains
but ash of a name on the thin lip of evening.
Fine, I'll light them myself, one by one, like days,
it was never a problem to burn alone, except
this smoke has the shape of your shoulders when you cried
and won't rise, it settles on the rug like a dog
waiting for a master long gone through another gate,
and the ceiling lowers into my chest, heavy, like a lid.
I was the place you ran to when your own house caught fire,
my heart, a steady stove, never too cold, never too greedy,
my ears, two wells where you poured out all your rains,
and you entered me the way you board a train with no destination,
just to no longer be where the walls stood in judgment of you,
just to get far, far away, into a country with no eyes on you.
Our only fear was the descent, the return to bodies,
that ugly moment when the world put its weight back on,
so we took another turn, spun the carousel once more,
put off morning with one more blue breath ~
we believed ourselves healed because the pain had learned to stay quiet,
but silence isn't healing, it's only a wound grown well.
So are you better now? Have your scars bloomed without me?
Did you find a better road than the one we used to take,
one you don't have to pave with your own bones?
I hope so. I hope so hard that this hope hurts me
like a blessing spoken through clenched teeth,
I hope someone taught you to rise without crutches of smoke.
I'm not waiting for you anymore ~ I've gathered my hours off the table like cards,
I've blown out the candle that held your place at the window
and now I'm winding something else: a morning, a silence, a name,
I leave the key under the mat for the man I'll be tomorrow at dawn,
and if, after all, the knock at the door is yours, late, so late,
know that the place you used to run to has moved into me, for good.
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