The future to us was sunlight on polished hardwood floors

fresh and capacious in an empty apartment

We moved in, slipped off hills of white shirts

stirred by the wild champagne of promised days

You brought home bundles of flowers wrapped in paper

By dark we struck a match, traced the pages of us

The grime of ordeals manifested, coating 

the sturdy furniture of our existence

We lived, the world outside turned 

and turned into an explosive desert of eggshells

Every step towards and away from anything a trigger 

We’ve become guns aimed at all the living anywhere

When the first roar of war appears like the fiery glimmer

of a martial sun on the horizon; is that when you pack and go?

What if one hears the metallic din of it long before the other; what if

the other never hears it? Do you go?

One early summer we stood by an apple tree and were good friends 

and spun our sleeping, eating, walking-around life into golden rings of trust

You say we need to leave and find glittering pools of sun, bumblebees, 

bales of hay and fullness — I believe you. I’m folding everything away 

into the unknown, intuiting already the richly fragrant rooms, waxed

floors of new places, mild evenings glowing in windows and bright bouquets 

far away