Our Post-Mortem
Haibun Poetry
I sit on your beige sofa across from you in your living room. Mike — your husband, my fraternity brother— prepares the VHS tape. Of your wedding.
There is a moment when he’s in the kitchen. I see you, seated cross-legged, some serene Buddha of a woman. Only a hint of the passion we shared permeates in that fleeting look of awkward reminiscence. A guilty pleasure you quickly hide from him when he steps back in.
Somewhere else in your apartment your son sleeps. The video starts. I pretend each scene isn’t a peeling knife scalping off layer after layer of me. Our time passed long ago, but scars can still bleed. And ache.
The video ends. The night ends. I step out into a cold January night — a numb grief, long-muted, my only company as I head home.
Alone.
full moon
our breath misting the windshield
long past
more by FRANK J. TASSONE
Photograph by Gianni Scognamiglio
