Up the crumbling road
they ran from
quiet cemetery stones,
bedrolls flapping, dodging
early morning rain in
green encrusted May,
laughing as they came, the
dash of youth, and
all of life ahead.
From my window perch, I
wished me in their place
and longing, turned away,
spring too heavy
for a shredded heart leaking
messy love right down
my shirt, and crept
around the room certain
of impending death, a
Duse to the core. I mended,
they dried out.
We all moved on to older
lives, she left hers first
too soon, and young.
Decades on I return
to lushness, grays and greens,
wet kissed, fizzing temporary
love, and wonder if her spirit
is there too, revisiting
lilac scented nights with him
on Heaven’s Way.

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Heaven’s Way is a cemetery road in North Bennington, Vermont.