Dear John

by ruby tuesday

Posted to Action Poetry on 2003-12-08 09:39:00

I walked away from this twice this morning;
there is nothing I hate more than goodbye.
But end can be beginning and the opposite
is true, as I know from that day we
passed at the turnstile, you on your way in,
and I heading out. You nodded, and your
fingerprints have been on my pen
ever since.

I wonder if you read Emily, Anne and Sylvia,
though you never really mentioned them I
taste their vowels in yours. Vowels meant
a lot to you, I can tell. Softer and more
melodic than crushing consonants, more
personal. Rhyming them, trilling them,
lingering over them like the oooh
in Julia.

There is no god here; you said that and
I for one believe it. I’ve heard it all:
the cheating, the drunken rages resulting
in broken furniture in some hotel lobby,
the bitterness. It showed up in some of
those biting notes. Unabashadly human,
embarrassingly honest like that paperbagged
picture of you in love.

Some people just don’t get it, but there
are many more who do. That sort of makes
it worthwhile, I think. I got it, lying
in bed at about fifteen; it hit me like a
pie. And if I saw you today,walking down
some snowy street with your hands in
your pockets, I’d pull over to say it:
“Hey, there you are.”