After,
I stood on the street
as the drunken city hurtled past,
broke around me in eddies.
I was the creek stone,
the bit of bracken changing the flow
with head hanging chin to chest.
My top-most branch snapped
and I sank inside
as you turned on your heel,
disappearing into the too-bright darkness,
into the cabs and the tunnels and the noise:
Back to your unknown,
while I was left
to weigh this aberrant ache
against those mysteries
locked behind your eyes,
my eyes,
against everything I don’t understand anymore.
My breath fogged, ghostlike.
Then I too walked away.
Emily Benson writes poems of humanity, longing, and nature. She lives in Western New York with her husband and two sons. Twitter: @ebenson_emily IG: @missemofstageandscreen