So This Is How It Is

So this is how it is,
sitting alone at the kitchen table
under a dim light, eating a salted tomato,
reading some short story or other,
and it hits you – inside skin of the tomato
like the inside of her lips, underside of her tongue –
and you sit amazed by loss.
The warmth like folding into dough
into fullness. Honey sinking into honey.
When you want to you can’t reach that memory,
only just trace its fluid outlines before it recedes.
But this is how it hits you
all unaware and peaceful.
I could write letters. I could write
long letters. I could write her long letters
about the silence now, about the rain,
about the cacti and sand,
candles and blackberries, cool wood floors,
about telling the truth and sleeping all curled over,
cooking large soups and filling an empty room
with the living smell of bread.
Could, but won’t. Would, but can’t.
So this is how we trust each other,
how we love each other.
So this is how it is.

~ Melissa Stein ~