All I have left of a love story
\nis a story inside me.
\nNo letters, poems, mementos
\nare left behind.
\nA story that now belongs to earth,
\na mood, when the day
\nleaves shadows on the wall,
\nwhen my heart acknowledges
\nshe is missing.
\nSomewhere a trace of her,
\na headstone announcing
\nthe last day of her life.
\nAnd then it begins.<\/p>\n
I close my eyes.
\nI see her in a sacred plot
\nwhere spring grows violets
\nby her stone.
\nSummer putting wild flowers
\nabout her,
\ndandelions, daisies.
\nShe loved the gentleness of flowers.
\nThe way autumn gathered them
\ntogether,
\nand I would rake them up.<\/p>\n
I could see in my mind
\nthe tea she was fixing.
\nI would come into her kitchen
\nand see her beautiful as she was,
\nand we would sit by her fireplace
\nand talk until evening.
\nOur lives colored each other.<\/p>\n
Helen was an open sky.
\nFor all the care of her steps,
\nshe was instantly light
\nwhere she went,
\nand we shared the news.
\nFor me, yesterday,
\nfor her, a faraway window,
\nwhere she gently pulled me,
\nand I would look out
\non her world.<\/p>\n
A love of children.
\nAffairs that ended without them.
\nLoneliness,
\nand a place where her heart
\ncame apart,
\nand the journey back,
\nfrom the terrible sanctum
\nof a nervous breakdown.
\nThe details of the story
\nare mine and hers.
\nShe loved me and I loved her.
\nThe choreography was ours.<\/p>\n
I told her,
\nI wanted to marry her,
\nor rather, I would have married her.
\nWe left it there,
\nragged and for the most part sweet.
\nLike many love stories,
\nI had to go away,
\nand she had to go away,
\nand time,
\nbeing short or long,
\nshe vanished,
\nand I with years left
\nto live went on.
\nI was sixteen,
\nand she was eighty,
\na bridge love could not cross.
\nA door left open.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
All I have left of a love story is a story inside me. No letters, poems, mementos are left behind. A story that now belongs…<\/p>\n