Avalanche

Avalanche (On Saying Goodbye)

One morning we walked across Ponte Sant’Angelo

Of ancient and young angels, your shoes and

legs in the air    with their wings.

Under the ramparts, two content and desperate shadows

Look back .

While painting your eyes,

The kryptonite of  deep green paint

Vanished me in that

vague sea, clearly defined by the lines around

those lidless roaring ovens

 the deadly seascapes of sirens

pushing and pulling / tides and undertow.

The brushes became heavy in my hands.

My heart was a boulder,

an avalanche.

Once while putting a nail in the wall

She came as close to me as ever, almost

To where, filled with her hair

I close my eyes and

Drop the nail.

Energy is not fair.

He is weeks from turning old and she

weeks from turning  home

to the city of Angels.

Just remember, we stole that boat in Venice.  We took the Orient Express. Do you remember Paris? Your birthday in Istanbul? the hospital in Brooklyn on Christmas?  Remember Mykonos? The police station?

Remember the Ponte Santangelo in March?

the first time we kissed?(…)

There’s the passage of sharing and projecting and remembering.

So many times he would have gladly pulled you close. But

Never could.

You said your mother made the mistake

of falling in love. You walked and

he rode his bike, slowly by the river. He said,

Falling is not a mistake, it is a force. And Love is not a choice.

It’s a weight. We just pretend it isn’t. We all carry boulders.

(And, how did she survive? ) Or maybe

He just meant to say that

And didn’t.

What an ass he made,  looking at yours…

It is difficult to ride so slowly, and not, and

Much of regret is about what is not said.

So he wrote:

“Blessed are those who may travel with you, have you, hold you, and let you go.

Even when it breaks their hearts

Like it does mine.

If we pray to the right gods,  someday we may

Try this again when  the odds are not so stacked against us,

I will still wish…”

In the days of paper, it could be.

Angels are rare nowadays.

She will be missing from him.

In the childish rags of matter and void, simply

A real one

among many

friends .

He will always have her there,

On the cover of his book

 in the metaphor of lightness

in the chapter on destiny,

in matter and void.

not algebra, just a boulder

just a crush

heavy in the eternal city.