Heat
Poetry by Evelyn Lau
You’re gone? Good, I’m glad you’re gone,
the man on the treadmill next to me spits
into his phone. Piece of shit.
There are days it’s like that, the anger
charred black, lava-hot, those are the better
days. I vowed not to let your leaving
unhinge this brief summer —
this bluebell sky, split by a contrail
of smoke, these common gardens
so many shades of green — citrus, vegetal —
gulping in filtered sun.
For years I studied you, like sculpture.
The straight rule of your shoulders,
a forced meditation. Some days I would see you
on the street and think, Maybe this is enough —
gold rims of your sunglasses,
cut of your calves, how longing poured
off me like a kind of light. When I leave a person,
a place, you said, I shut the door and don’t
look back. Already I’ve begun to blur
in your gaze, while your outline boils
in the July haze—a mirage, a miracle—
your absence swelling like heat inside me.