Let’s say it was a winter Thursday afternoon

like any of the million winter Thursday afternoons

when I’d come home from work

just after you’d come home from work

and you’d gone over to the window

by the silent stereo sitting in the corner,

to close the curtains, to close out the torrid day.

I was standing in the doorway with my old brown coat still on

but this Thursday evening I saw something different.

Like a cat cornered, angry and hissing

you stared and you snarled and you spat venom

across the morning’s cold mugs on our old coffee table

you called me a cunt

and you told me to leave.

But I could smell our house,

fresh in a way I’d never noticed before.

Joss sticks and wine and washing on the line.

The door handle was brassy calm in my quivering palm

the carpet coarse through my shuffling socks

and I could taste my own guilt

sitting sharp in my cold cheeks.

 

Twenty years before it was a different you

but let’s say it was another winter Thursday afternoon

like any of the million winter Thursday afternoons

when I’d come home from work

as you came home from work.

But that time I saw something different,

then you were the one sobbing

and saying you had to go

and I was the one telling you to leave.