What I remember most
about your bedroom was
the view through one of
the two windows that looked
out onto a red maple. When
we first met, I would watch
the leaves on that tree change
slowly from their gay summer green
to an autumn maroon, as we lay, naked,
untangled, on weekend afternoons,
divorced, each with a daughter, knowing
even then we had no future together,
you with your horses, boots, and
line dancing, me with my East Coast
education and trench coat draped
over my arm. I never said it would
work, never dreamt of still owning
each other in the spring, when the tree
outside your bedroom window in that
trailer park up north began to drip
with snowmelt, the blossoms
appearing, to me, for the first time,
the noose of time being lifted from
around my neck, the thick ice in
Horsetooth Reservoir breaking up,
cracking in the warmth of the March
sun, while the last galaxies of
tenderness were shared between us.
