Philip Booth


Parting

That you are moving so far
will not, as you say,
tear me apart; it is having

to part that tears at
my being, that takes part
of me with you against

all reason, against your will,
against mine; you have
every reason to go, but

that you are going, going
away so far, changes
the map: already I have

in mind the whole city,
not merely your building,
become a crater, a circle

surrounding nothing--
and cast out from it, from
the explosion, a shadow

lengthened into the actual
desert, time zones beyond
today's sunrise, where I

am already flying out
toward you, down to
that shadow's thin end,

down the map to where
you. not yet gone, have already
taken me with you, moved

as I am to find that you
are actually going, going
so far as to prove, beyond

all saying, that in this
irrefutable world it is not
love by which we're torn apart.
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