Leaving Song Poem by Robbie Coburn

I cannot love you here.
fragments of cinder begin to fall.
it is winter and the night is coming faster.
I could not see the air escaping, saying
there is life beyond this room,
the notion of longing for this space
when it becomes irretrievable
and the emptiness of arriving there.

I have thought about leaving, again
the knife to my throat in the drive of the day's arrival,
feet crossing the street towards everywhere and nowhere.
I have not told you
before, your eyes collapsing and never returning,
the way I love your body
when I am no longer holding it there

and of the earth opening around you
where you are not sleeping
when you are not here.