What I never said to you was just this: I knew.
Knew from early on how you saw me as tether,

reminder of mistake, souvenir of a broken evening,
neither legacy nor hope. What you never said to me

was why you stayed as long as you did, though
I think I know that too: I think you waited until you thought

I’d grown enough to be more whole without you.
When you left, I did not speak of it for a long time.

One day I did the same as you: I left and went
my own way, hating myself a little, but loving

my new world a little more than that. And now that we have met
again, after all is done, we sit on your porch

and do not speak at all, wreathed in smoke and what we never said
to each other, what we do not say even now.