Magnitude

Another afternoon slips through my fingers
as I dream of a love that I could lose and miss.
Have I never loved one that much?

The lily is steady on the floor next to my desk,
but it was not a gift of love lost but of war ended, peace
restored. And as this afternoon, too, slips away,

I watch the dog through the window snapping at a fly
who has grown heavy-bottomed and slow at the day’s end.
Perhaps I have never loved and lost that much at once.

Is it possible that I have only loved, quit, and then,
lost later? I am fast to cut love, deep and to the quick.
There have been afternoons that I let slip into nights

while I laid in eddies of sheets with him.
I never let them carry me too far, never let go
to the undercurrent, never loved him that much.

And now I think of you and the way we hold ourselves
contained and apart, and the luxury that might be
if we didn’t. Still, another afternoon slips
through my fingers. I may never love that much.