I give away the dreams

After you go away from me,
I hang onto the planet
as the days and then the years
go by. The distances between
our nights and days lengthen
and then disappear. The moon
falls over the edge of your absence,
and loses her heart.

Trees come out of the sky
and are erased by things
that once surrounded their too
too solid limbs. I lean into
the earth, trying to see
the nothing that comes of
something as important
as our love once seemed.

Eventually, I talk
about you as someone
who will never return.
I give away the dreams
we dreamed together
and pretend you are
like any glimmer
on the horizon,
deceiving me
into believing
that you would be here
in this place that I
could see in the
distance: this empty
and endless orbit,
where everything
is just out of
anyone's reach.

[Joyce Sutphen {1949- }, 'Out of Orbit' from Straight Out of View]