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[i]… but when I became a man I put away childish things.
For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face.
Now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known.
And now abideth faith, hope, love - these three, but the greatest of these is love.[/i]
I’ve put away my love for you
like other childish things.
Yet can’t grow up
into aloneness
fast enough: my bones feel pliant
green and frail,
outstretched of strength.
My sinews ache
with sudden grief, with growing pains.
With pains,
which do not fade
but put out limbs exuberantly
to fill new space;
Which smash the glass
and rake my ribs
and bruise my bloodstream.
I worked so hard
to vanish you:
shook out the sheets and swept the floor,
scraped off my skin the residue
of traitorous affection.
I opened veins
and shaved my head,
I cauterized raw nerves
and drowned our children.
Yet still the doorbell rings
and on the porch lie severed remnants
dredged from the midnight river,
bloated-pale and appalling and accusing.
They’ll track me down unceasingly
these small brutalities, these dead betrayals.
Forensic science will note my guilt:
it's etched inside my lungs.
Your atoms are still everywhere.
I breathe them.
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Death of a Pragmatist
