marqus bobesich - the well-wishers

It’s come to this – an empty house;

a bag of cupcakes from teenage girls

(so neighbourly, so young)

blowing smoke into their hands -

our lakes now frozen over.

“but don’t mind the furniture

on the front lawn, ladies…

what we have here is a failure to

figure things out –

a killing of the old self,

and she could be wrong by morning.”

The only thing we had in common was

that we loved each other;

how waking up beside one another might have

been a small, daily victory.

And now, unshaven,

the squinting,

the icing on your bathrobe.

And all her things (from the closet, from the sill)

left for garbage -

too afraid to come down the stairs on

their own, on their way outside,

to the light,

to the world of get up and gone.