Leaving You
Leaving you
your loving still quick in my veins
and acrid in my breath
like running fire
I turn into the cold hall
turn down eighteen bare steps
and shoulder the storm door open.
I turn lighter than wind.
I turn into the cracking winter
and walking by brownstone houses
in a winter coat
by freezing slush in the cutter
by iron fences
walking on ice
for twenty minutes
common, vague, and luminous
in a city of shining hazard
I am still warm and bitter.