Souldier

Sunday afternoon, traffic moves into the city but you pack your bags and move out. At the dock, a salty wind whips at your skin but the sun makes the ocean glitter: everything is summer. Catch a ferry and let the islands slip past; we get off at the last stop and trudge up a hill to the tiny cabin. One room, two cats. The only grocery store on the island closed hours ago, but we find potatoes in the pantry and ice cream at the outdoor bar, we do not starve. By the time conversation slows, it is night out, August night and you don’t panic now because the dark doesn’t own you like it did, you have left it. I jumped in a river this morning and the trees hung their branches to ripple the water. Everything real is so far away, I breathe without reminders. But you were supposed to be here, and I see your footsteps in every beautiful scene, see the absence of your smile in my every delighted giggle. Summer is beautiful on its own, it doesn’t need you.

I still think it’d be better if you were there.