Listen :: AFI :: Single Second
Single Second
My car putts up the mountain,
the gas pedal pushed down to the floor,
gears grind as we crawl
past telephone poles and trees.
They say smell is the most
acute trigger
to memory –
He smells
like sweat and cold air
with a trace of stale cigarettes.
A single boulder lies
displaced : along the side of the road :
Giant’s Despair.
As if nature knew
we would need
this marker someday.
I climb through the trees,
brace myself against
the smooth rocks
slipping
a little on fallen leaves.
I look back,
to see he is still behind me.
This is
the first time I
have seen this place in the light.
The rocks : brown and gray instead
of the shadowed black they always
have been :
the ledges not as menacing.
I sit on the flattest rock,
face the city hidden behind the woods.
He sits down,
his back to mine.
I’m sorry about… he starts.
I love you.
I turn to him, I lo…We don’t
work. I can’t do this anymore.
I stare at the spray-painted
boulders – some writing so old
and worn it’s illegible
some so new it shouts
through
the trees. The public declarations
of loves
that have come and gone,
that were assumed
to last forever.
back roads & city streets 