Our Post-Mortem
I sit on your beige sofa across from you in your living room. Mike — your husband, my fraternity brother— prepares the VHS tape. Of your wedding.
There is a moment when he’s in the kitchen. I see you, seated cross-legged, some serene Buddha of a woman. Only a hint of the passion we shared permeates in that fleeting look of awkward reminiscence. A guilty pleasure you quickly hide from him when he steps back in.
Somewhere else in your apartment your son sleeps. The video starts. I pretend each scene isn’t a peeling knife scalping off layer after layer of me. Our time passed long ago, but scars can still bleed. And ache.
The video ends. The night ends. I step out into a cold January night — a numb grief, long-muted, my only company as I head home.
Alone.
full moon
our breath misting the windshield
long past
first published by Image Curve, April 9, 2015
Photograph by Gianni Scognamiglio
for dVerse Poets Pub Haibun Monday–Winter Moon–hosted tonight by Victoria.
Frank J. Tassone 
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