Late Love

What stomped your rooming-house rooms 
was not peace, is not peace even now,
nor love quite. 
            
         
		Though there is that.

What is left: scraps of shredded beef 
            
            
     
			on the plate.

We have given in. Who will find us?

We are the last migratory birds 
on the way to somewhere else.

We have outlived the thermometers.

Hospitals, list of doctors 
as long as the envelope,
            
        
		pills on the table.
I am tired of them.  
I want to remember  
the picnics of beginning. 

I want to remember my promise
            
        
		to hold on through.

Your blue chair,
scattered magazines on the floor.

You watch me sleep
             
        
		before I leave again.

Even in dream I can hear
the predictable train
           
	as it passes the boarded-up station.

 

© Patricia Fargnoli