So much love seemed a bad omen.
We were quiet in the mountains,
each feeling we'd betrayed the other
from the start. We understood
we were hurtling into space
at eighteen miles a second, clouds
of atoms charged and polarized,
each alone in the abyss,
sad for each other, wanting
nothing more than twilight.
You wore your summer dress.
We signed our names with all our strength
and went home in two directions.
No way to mourn except
hold on for one more breath.
For a long time I sat in darkness.
Moonlight touched your chair.
—A cento composed of lines from D. Nurkse's A Country of Strangers: New and Selected Poems, Knopf, 2022.
