Stirring,The Length Of

The length of stirring
his thin limbs rounded around her own,
and his breath frosted
into the early hours of dawn,
and neither of them speaking
that which they both knew, and the knowing
circled around them into the early hours
of dawn.  So, he roused himself
and pulled on his slacks, though he would call
them britches when his son would hear the story,
and he couldnt think of what he could tell her,
which he hadnt already said, or which he hadnt already
not spoken, and the speaking seemed useless,
and though it was the early hours he felt weary suddenly.  
Weary with the leaving of everything, 
and not just the leaving of her,
and he took his shirt and carried it down the loft
of the barn, and this he never told anyone,
cried quietly by his fathers Palomino,
and then he went into the early hours,
went into the frost-bitten chill of goodbye.
She didnt come with him to the ship, didnt wait
with his family at the dock, and he looked for her,
but she wasnt there, and he would remember her
thick, blonde, mane of hair and her long legs,
which had pulled him and which had made him into a man.

© Heather Simeney MacLeod