...frost in low lying areas

We left
the screened green
balcony door
thrown wide all summer
that year.

We shared a flat
on the third storey,
could just hear
footsteps and murmurs
of couples passing
down on the sidewalk
squeezing in
around the edges
of the bulky scents
of fresh-mown grass
live juniper and cedar,
as we lived and talked
from day to day,
as you casually turned
my life on its head
each time you turned
your wideset brown eyes
matter-of-factly on me,
as we spoke
of the daily details of
comfortable coexistence
as we made sunlit love
on the hardwood floor.
until you left again
after the trees turned.

A week later
a cooling day teetered past
a delicate tipping point
between summer dusk
and deeper darkness,
the radio promised frost
in low-lying areas,
and I had to shut the door
for the first time in months.
I realized only then,
when street sounds
and scents faded
that our apartment
was lonely.