I thought of distant friends
like hotels I’d visit again and again
checking in with my new clothes
and long lost smile. I thought
next year will be time enough
plenty of time, a cornucopia of time.
Waiting for me always our shared history—
when we slid down the mountain
in an inner tube broke into the daycare
vexed the boss stealing fruit.
I should have known, curled in my cell
thinking about apples I’d eat for breakfast,
one season after another, that a letter,
even one signed with xxx’s, is not
a conversation. My loss might seem small—
when was the last time you saw her?—
ten years? No goodbye, no way to admit
winter swifter than imagined. And now,
an entire country closed to me—me,
me, this is not an elegy. I’ve lost one person in whom
was lodged a stripe of myself, forever
narrow. A suit altered entirely from what
I was counting on in my foolishness.