Leaving the Old Gods

I.
The people who watch me hang my coat
on a peg at the office don't even know
about that other life,
the life when there was you, it,
however briefly. To them my body
is a fact casual as the weather.
I could tell them:
That day it rained
the way it rains in the New World.
Leaves struck the window like daggers.
I didn't think about God
but the ones we used to worship
the ones who want your heart still
beating, who load you with gold
and lure you to sleep
deep in the cenote.

II.
A girl, he said, and I nodded
though we couldn't have known.
I would have left him then
for ten thousand pesos.
I don't know what world you inhabit,
swimming there, baby, not-baby,
part of my body, not me,
swept aside like locks of hair
or toenail parings.
It's ten years today
and you who were never alive
pull a face in the leaves
of jacaranda, the only tree
that lives outside my window.
It must be your voice
whistling through the office window,
though I can't understand your words.
Comfort or accusation,
I can't understand your words.

-- Janet McAdams (1957-  ), Scottish, Irish, and Muskogee (Creek) poet, novelist, professor of poetry at Kenyon College, and editor-at-large of the Kenyon Review. From The Island of Lost Luggage, 2001, which received an American Book Award.

Image: Sarah K Reece, "Waiting for You," ink drawing, 2014, found here.