Exits.

Exits.

When I left nothing changed, nothing was touched

everything remained in its place: stacked books on the bedside table,

vacation pictures, the shower curtain, slippers on the floor by the bed,

dust on the turntable, LPs and top shelves she couldn’t see, never used –

status quo, like September 12^th, memorialized as if someone had died:

preserved in case they hadn’t;

when the dog died 2 years later she finally opened the windows,

had the floors redone, bought new area rugs and had the light fixtures changed.

She got an account at the gourmet grocery store and leased a car. 

The housekeeper was instructed, to a wagging metronomic finger once used

not infrequently at me to make her point, drive her issue,

render me a child -

“to use the damned stepstool if she couldn’t reach”;

someone painted the door jambs off white semi gloss 23 inches up from the floor so the

top and bottom finally matched.

It turns out that not all currencies in Europe or even in North America match and

at some places you still show a passport

even in places where they understand English

but not Arabic, Farsi, Finnish or Chinese.

I still don’t understand everything that happened or why we no longer match.

But we don’t.

It was time to remove your photos from my phone,

request a return of the entry key and to show you the exit

even as my heart broke in time to the staccato clicks of your fading footsteps

and despite the “Fuck you” tossed my way over your right shoulder.