Eddy

I have left you again.
Tonight you lie in a room with no
windows.
I am walking down Main Street
In a tight black dress,
Walking away laughing;
There is something about my leaving that is
final.

It wasn't the loneliness,
It wasn't the cruelty,
It wasn't your heavy body even
that kept us warm and wanting one another.

Finally I am alone.
There must be a thousand men like you.
There must be someone like you somewhere.
In the whole world somehow there must be at least
a stranger.

I have left you again.
I have a picture of us in my pocket.
I stole it while you were still sleeping.
We are walking down Main Street together,
walking along laughing.

In the photograph you are younger.
There is something about you that is innocent.
You hold on to me as if you have nothing more
to live for.
There is something about my leaving that is
beautiful, beautiful.

-Susan Musgrave
(A Man to Marry a Man to Bury, 1979)