"Have a nice day"
said the courthouse clerk.
I wondered at what she meant
by saying such a thing
and how she could say such a thing
As disbanded vows
filed in and out
to be signed and sealed
unpromises,
stoic masks hiding
broken inner children crying,
"Why couldn't you love me?"
Where unified sands
disunited into the ocean
to learn to be themselves again.
Where tattoos
burned memorial reminders
that love
has nothing to do
with attachment
And that memories, like love,
can not be erased
by paperwork under oath
and cover-up ink.
If only love
was so easy to discontinue
as the things that represent it.
Family photographs
exit their frames
less ceremoniously
than their grand entrance,
as if to recant:
"Beautiful creatures
are not meant to be captured."
Golden rings
Once full ~ now empty
Stammer
and stutter,
shaken, and shocked:
"I'm sorry for keeping you."
The Blue Ridge Mountains
showed me that, sometimes,
love is a wildfire.
It sets alight and sweeps away
all that is known
Leaving fertile soils
for new growth.
Photographic memories
burn me
with magnificent colors
though I yearn
for the burn out
when I can sweep up the ash.
For now
I throw our sands
deep into the Quinebaug.
'Maybe one day
pieces of me
will meet pieces of you
in the dance,'
I reflect,
as I sit beside myself,
sitting beside the river.
"Have a nice day."
I wondered
at how a simple phrase
could mean so much;
I mean,
if you heard it
for what it really means to say
no more ~ and no less.
I wish
words, and vows, and wedding rings
didn't so often
lose their magnitude
to habit and mindlessness.
"Have a nice day",
said the courthouse clerk.
Something like a tear
glistened in my eye
and I thanked her silently.
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