Green
Laura Maylene Walter
I. Photographs
Boxes of them, sorted by color.
Gray for the years of her hazy childhood,
pink for college, green for children.
I'm green. She flares up in gold
when she is with the three of us.
II. Conversations
She and I drove past the cherry orchard
with its knobby crawling trees.
I think she could read my mind,
the spaces of light behind my eyelids.
She told me once, my children are my reason for living.
So how can I tell her now that she is my breath,
my sky, my reason?
III. Winter
She was like this to me: human, fragile, built of bone.
Hairless. I saw my childhood in her scalp.
What was it like, to have all of me inside her?
Is the pain she had when I left her the same
I feel as she leaves me now?
IV. New Year
At midnight I was orphaned.
I looked for signs - shadows, light, the smell of vanilla.
I could see a blond June day rising
to meet her, and then I fell.
I still await the landing.
V. After
I can't see ahead for the lengths of sleep
coiling around me. It will be January forever.
The smell of space surrounds me,
pulls me (I imagine) toward her.
She shocks me with dreams.
In my sleep she is golden, and smiling,
and brimming with green.