It Was Nevermore, and Then

Remember that poem you wrote?

The one about San Miguel de Allende?

Roses and bougainvillea everywhere

Gauze and weight and whispers rampaging...

Your fingers were lithe then,

Imagination, supple.

The way our skin stretched

The headboard cracked

Each inch of equinox another nail in the coffin.

We never boarded the plane.

Passports expired,

The amethyst sank into a sock drawer,

13 years hovered and burrowed into bellies.

This Last Glacial Maximum of love.

The seas pulled back and locked in ice.

Land exposed, cracked and fertile.

Waiting for a comet to strike.

If only your mother hadn't died.

If only the fire had smothered itself

In your despair, 

Instead of roaring back to life.

Maybe then,

I would have forgotten the jasmine in your words

The way they made me overlook incarnation

And that we once held meteors between our lips.