Day Thirteen: Heartbreak

 SEPTEMBER

We sit at a table in the Midwestern sun
ninety degrees at two in the afternoon
prolonging my drive back to Illinois.
In two hours, you will be a blur
on the sidewalk, standing exactly where I left you,
but everything else will be moving,
and we'll both be swallowed up by bodies.
The desperate sex of the previous evening
still lies on the table before us,
and we stare at it as if it were a patient.
I can no longer touch you,
I can only run in the opposite direction--
and so I rise from the table,
tell you that it's time for me to go.
We walk to my car,
I hug you tight underneath the trees
while a sleeping bum snores in the weeds nearby.
We break apart eventually
and stare directly at each other
and I say “I love you”
but I am already starting not to mean it.