You flattened the bedspread on your side
with palms swift and no longer delicate,
militantly tucked a corner, and I pretended to sleep, curled

in the terror of who I’d become.  My waking
wouldn’t prevent the separation. Dresser drawers

cringed and squealed, no folding for the packing
suitcases tossed down the hallway like Olympic hammers.
Your body twirled for momentum and the heft.

There was the house and tree-garden, longleaf pines wet
from fresh sleet-pack so thin and nearly invisible.

The sedan gunned in reverse, you vanished and I
absorbed the improbable morning darkness.