Inspired by Ursula K. Le Guin, Finding My Elegy, p 47.

Between us

is neither forgiveness

nor reparation

but only the sea waves, the sea wind.

 

Between us is a gulf

a vastness

a distance compounded by time,

that destroys consciousness with pity.

 

Between us is

nothing,

for we are bonded like ionic or

covalence or convalescents,

In a place not of our choosing,

surrounded by life not of our design.

 

Between us is

a rift, years old and fights wide,

stretched with each faint slight,

Deepened with each perceived snub,

Darkened with each impassioned plea for reconnection,

because of feelings of duty, an honor, and hobligation.

 

Between us is

a coffee table, with

two coffee cups, and

twelve ounces of coffee, and

three lumps of sugar in one,

and a dash of honey and two

creams in the other,

and two coasters, round, woven of some

brown wood-like material, gently

warming under the influence of

the mugs, and

two spoons, dripping, slowly dripping,

tendrils down their curved undersides

to pool on the ceramic surface of the table, and

a handful of napkins, unused, and

six minutes worth of tears, and

the unrealized expectations you

have now deposited upon that ceramic surface, seemingly designed for only this purpose, to comfort you, to catch your fall, to hold you up after I’ve done the incomprehensible, the unimaginable, the terrible, and told you I can’t have a baby with you, I won’t have a baby with you,

I already had a pregnancy with

you and I don’t any more.