A year ago today Art paid me a visit at the house I was staying at while temporarily separated from my husband. What happened that night was completely unexpected and I embarked on a love with depth and breadth like I had never experienced. Since then we navigated job loss, debt, moving, divorce, and a long distance relationship. But we survived and are moving into the next stage of our life and our relationship. Bless our partners and metamours for being so supportive. Thank you, my love, for being the inspiration behind this, and so much more.

 
Once you held my hand.
It was
a beginning.
Once I was lost
& you took me in.

Goodbye Kingston,
little town on the bay,
past the thousand islands I navigated
to reach you, waiting
in a little house with a yellow porch,
a white dog at the door, & you
sitting in a white chair with a computer in your lap
listening to Led Zappelin & eating oatmeal,
the Barbie trucks parked under the couch table
yoga mats & backpacks piled by the door.

I would like to find you there
happy among the household things
the crystal glasses on the mantel,
the statues of Buddha big and small
the hangings of women with moons in their bellies,
the life you live with another
to which I am a guest,
a visitor who makes herself at home
eating your food & lounging on your furniture.

I’m saying goodbye to the capitol
overlooking the water, goodbye
to the shops on Princess Street, goodbye
to Skeleton Park where we walked the dog,
goodbye to the small houses close together,
goodbye to the window with its grey square of morning
and twilight cut out of a coloring book.
Goodbye to the essential oils in a basket
next to a picture of you two kissing the baby.

Goodbye to the small place
where we became something else
in each other’s presence.
Something wild and wordless
like geese flying over the thousand islands
& the warmth of your chest
is a dream I had of riding through the night
enfolded by wings.
I felt their arrival like buds opening,
in explosion of tulips along the fences,
the days growing long like the neck of a violin.

You don’t have to be mine
but I would like to be yours.

To keep & be kept by
to reward & to chastise.

In our next bed, house, street & city,
there will be room enough for my things
next to your things:

my clothes in a drawer
my shoes by the door
my books on a shelf by the door—

where every hunger
will be quenched with feasting

where every parting
is a promise to be returning.

Once you held my hand.