Yet another storm shivers the trees,
            reeling even the towering

sequoia. While walking the dog, I weep,
            forced by icy wind

to abandon stoicism, your plane not yet
            airborne.  Once again,       

I strip your sheets, reshelve books you never
            opened, find, on the sill,

four bloodstained molars that once
            rooted in you           

as you in me, biding time.  I place them
            with a lost button,

a gingko leaf, a half-checked list, twisting you
            around my finger           

like a hank of hair from an enchantment: Go,
            but return to me.            

The very gust that lifted you strums
            the phone wires

below a jet trail ever less definite,
            then gone.

– Devon Balwit