Tragedy

Like pieces of a puzzle, we fit into tragedy
Nice and easy,
We fill the background with our little lives.

In your absence I have perfected my loneliness,
I have strung it like a clothesline between us.
On it I drape fragments of my being:
A lunchbox, a cyclamen, and a sigh.

By the greasy glass of the diner
We sat with our dreams in our laps
Staring at what could have been.
My hopes were too big for me, you said
No wonder they were sagging.
It is too much to ask of life, you said
Happiness...
But the streets I painted still glow
With the sheen of autumn drizzle,
And the laughs I imagined are frozen agape.
My place at the table is vacant still,
And that city that doesn't know me
Misses me already.

(Originally posted on June 08, 2005)