We depart. Farewell and abrazos
remain hovering like a frightened handkerchief in the wind.
Lightness, smell of seaweed over a blue abyss.
Something warm, like a sleeping child in you,
takes root even as it painfully ceases.
We have not yet turned our backs on each other,
but already I know I will step at once
into my loneliness. We stepped
through each other, our hearts beat in consonance
when we stood face to face. We reach back
from our rapidly retreating autumns,
grasping for the fire of childhood, fearlessly.
Then with rejoicing ring telephones
and doorbells, tapping on shoulders
like soft Northern snow,
toasts flow with fluent praise: welcome!
Greetings on your return to the living,
you little one lost, on the cemetery paths.