Nothing grew in that drab one-bedroom
apartment, gray-blue light cast from the swerving
freeway below, the old service road following
with a half-hearted shrug, a sad aquarium
of ordinary days circling, reflecting,
measuring themselves against us.
You moved the plants from one window
to another, hung them in the kitchen,
then the bathroom, fed them on eggshells
and coffee grounds -- all to no avail,
their brown and brittle ghosts too weary
to drift away, littering the floor and windowsills.
When we came back from that day trip
to the lake, the guppies you had just bought
were floating on the surface of the water,
their small incandescent bodies motionless,
tailfins like flames sputtered out, yet still glowing;
we knew, separately, without having to say,
that something larger had ended.
You left, at a ridiculous hour of the night,
a time normally reserved for old blues songs,
and weeks later, I did too, filling every bag
and suitcase with all the emptiness I could claim.
Even now, I wonder why we chose that place,
whether in hope or desperation; even now,
I wonder in what other rooms,
what other lives, we might have survived.
