It had seemed impossibly remote –
an eternity, or maybe two, away.
But I felt it all along –
detached, emotionless and omnipresent.
It was there,
on the edge
of the horizon,
Out there,
in the hot,
sticky darkness,
intentionally tense,
electrifying.
It was palpable and barely perceptible.
I could almost touch it,
like your hair the other afternoon.
(A sigh completely soundless, almost audible,
a glass across a crowded room.)
It hung in the air.
It was stubborn.
I begged: Go away!
But it wouldn’t.
And I would have asked you to come,
but I couldn’t –
there was simply no time.
The rift was already there.
The precipice, the distance – her touch.
A hint of raw, and dark,
and thinly layered, tearful silence,
a tint of sunset orange, river blue and seagull white.
It was never going to be easy.
The long,
drawn-out
goodbye.
—-
Liverpool, August 2018
Photograph: Sunset over the river Mersey, Liverpool, UK
Purple Travel Path 