108. The races versus the sawgrass.

The same bottle of liquor
has sat patiently in my pantry
since Thanksgiving. I have chosen
against dulling this.

It is strange to think of her
touching the clothes I used to touch.
Dress shirts that you may have bought
only after asking me if the color
was friend or foe against your skin.
It is strange to think

that you were the one to move on
first, as we had always declared me
as the one with a magnetic personality.
Although, if I were to be cruelly honest,

it was not the lack of opportunities
that prevented me from breaking
across the taped line, but is was my ability,
or less humbly, my wisdom, that allowed
me to say no. To pretend I was a great blue heron,
pretend I was at peace in the marsh,

and, more honesty, sometimes not needing
to pretend these things at all.
Are great blue herons hunted? I know they are seen
as beautiful, without being particularly delicate.

You required too much of me,
at the expense of my body and my stillness.
I notice the irony, with you now gone,
that I cannot sleep at night, that I am able
to see the world in light, that I make more conversation
with strangers. Again, honesty:

Something important was suffocated.
I am beginning to understand what that was,
and despite the grief I have for you, amidst the grief
I have for you, how I will get it back.