Election Year

It didn’t matter that he was still speaking.

His cheeks puffed and sank.

He could have spat or thrown a bottle,

rent a novella into a flurry of leaves.

He could have left,

having already said everything.

But he didn’t. He stayed incumbent

on the stoop, looking down the path

at the leftmost of the two pits near the garden gate

where the rosebushes had been. He remembered

the loppers you used to reduce

the foliage to two thorny crowns,

the way the handle of the shovel

had split then splintered

as you pried loose the tangle

of roots from the soil.

He took off your ring.

You’re choosing him over me, he said.

Blood-colored leaves swarmed with the wind.

Your sinking chin bloomed white. You looked at him.

You noticed your cigarette

burning the soft of your finger.

You thought of crying,

showing him the wound,

then decided against it,

although your lips had already begun to swell—

your own persistent allergy to salt or sadness.

The mist pinched minutely at your face.

You moved your good left hand out to touch him.

He was holding his left hand in his right.

Blood moved out, away from his heart.

He didn’t say anything.