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Serpentine, Volume 3, Number 1, Winter 1999

A "Missing You" Blues for a Man Who Will Never Miss Me

by Anne Colwell


We sit together on the concrete edge
of the house you are building.
The foundation is set.
Under our swinging feet
what used to be woods
covers itself in yellow leaves.
You've built so many houses:
from chicken coops,
from scratch,
from the tumbling remnants of a life
someone left.
When you finish this you'll sell it
and move away.

One winter day I woke up
in the bright room of your voice.
You taught me to make apple pancakes,
and to like country music.
Once on a quiet porch
darkening with August's afterthoughts
we watched goldfinches leap like sparks
from holly to poplar.

So in this other dusk
I find some way to ask.
You run your hand along
the concrete edge.
"I never missed one thing I built.
Not one." You said.



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