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The Color of Your Leaving
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Sorrow I don't think I heard a sound
that night;
It was one color in my ears and
pasted to the air I gathered
like wool with each breath.
It was a gunship and barbed wire sky
locked in my throat.
It was my black heart hurling
its last scream at the door
as you left.
You didn't look back.
The door closed softly, reverently.
I like to think you drove in circles
all night, coming back to me a
hundred times, your born-again
heart running ahead of you.
But I think you slept.
And I was jealous of the
darkness that held you in its arms.
How does pride speak at midnight
when the air we used to paint with
springtime drips from my hands?
No frozen wings of Pegasus.
No satin sheets for the moon.
It was the sky of late December
when stars forget their crystal dreams
and gray and silence are the
same voice.
It was my lungs exhaling a prayer
to a strange new god.
No morning song.
No slice of gold.
No you.
Patricia Joan Jones
