A Toast
For all the times I baked a pie for you
Knowing you’d tilt your smile my
direction—
For all the times I asked and you said
soon,
And by avoiding you thought that you
had won.
For all the times I slept against your
breath
And hoped you’d stay to keep my feet
warm.
For all the times I thought I’d fix
that mess
Of spines and blinders without getting
torn.
But even with the blinks and all the
smiles
That never quite rang true, I know I
tried—
But even with your heartless, heatless
guile
It wasn’t ‘til you left I learned to
cry.
We
both had orbits never quite our own—
We caused the brick walls to crumble and
drown.
