Poem of what goes through my mind when she tells me I don’t have to be brave and I try to believe her

Beneath the wood we stacked in the takeout containers—to save money on the heat bill—is the life we’ve made. A life made of letters, made of all the ending lines, of all the poems I never sent you. I flinch at your touch but eat your frozen udon and day-old empanadas like we still have poolside talks. Like we have not been equally abandoned by each other. So if what you say is true, be brave first: look right into that smoke and love me not just for the living but the dying also. This life, our life—unbox it from the takeout container and reheat it as though we might be the same as we used to be.

Poem and photography by Hazel J. Hall.
Previously published in volume 22 issue 2 of Centripetal.