With one foot
on the yellow warning strip
of the subway platform,
and the other
on the speckled grey tile
which appeared identical
to the bottom of the sea,
I stood
among the other
soon-to-be passengers,
feeling the train approach
as a wall of wind,
waking me from the dream.

Rather than your usual
position, sleeping next to me
you were in the shower
singing to yourself
in such a way
that it felt
in that moment
to be a directed scene.

With your suitcase
and bins and boxes
scattered among
your formerly black shoes
transformed over the seasons.
They sat in the hallway
just inside the door
a forest floor green,
just as the sun disappears
behind the trees.

Earlier that month
I was standing in that
same hallway,
calling the police.
I had hardly considered
how you would be received.

The months had
layered on to one another
in which I couldn’t sleep
unless you already were,
warm and breathing
until the morning.

And on that final morning
we hugged beside the couch
and cried,
less for the moment
and more for the versions
of ourselves
who were certain
the position of the stars
was predetermined
to pull us along.

Years later
I found a fading train ticket
in a closet jacket,
and placed an old lamp
in a new room.
Each object’s
soft significance
worn away with
the time in between.
Prior to that morning,
all those years ago,
every ending
was a fortunate relief.
I was still a child,
waiting for the magic show
or the movie script
to suddenly intervene.