Chapter 6

In each picture, you smile
Brightly
Over shared ice cream
In rainy downtown Portland
Next to some trash bin 
Of one swirling Times Square
Under the starry Christmas lights
At Chelsea market
And on your couch
A piece of toast
Still poking from inside your cheek…

I bury it so deep
Till the ice cream has lost its rum flavor
Till the trash smells of nothing
Till the lights have dimmed
Behind a curtain of haze and fog
Except for that piece of toast
Which lingers
Stubbornly
As if to tell me
As if it ever slipped my mind
That it’s all too late.

Sep, 2020