Changed

Waving Goodbye

I stand where the earth swells

with hemorrhaging flowers—

fat with faces,

mouths opening and closing

in praise or protest

of the sun.

They are beautiful

in the way dying things are—

full of light

and already leaving.

The buildings around me

make me small.

They rise and vanish

into clouds,

but it's the trees

that feel more ominous—

the way they lean,

the shadows they cast,

how they don't need

to be anything

but alive

and older than me.

And in the stillness,

I realize

how alone I seem—

and for a moment,

I am.

I carry my love for you

like an injured thing,

dragging it by the leg

through the day.

Its neck won't hold

its head anymore.

It should be buried.

Let it sleep.

I can't read your epistles—

your poems,

your cleverness—

they no longer

speak your character.

They mouth meaning

but have forgotten

what it means.

On the way home

I pass children

shouting their needs

into the world—

unapologetic,

unworried

about sounding like themselves.

And the city cleaner—

he bows his head

to discarded things

as if they matter.

Maybe they do.

Maybe I could too.

But I'd have to give up

fortune-telling,

give up hope,

give up being

the future's echo.

I'd have to stop

apologizing

for my existence,

stop defending

my personality

like a woman

left on a desolate tract

with only her name

and a flint.

And worst of all—

I'd have to stop saying,

"So sorry.

It's my fault again."

Then maybe,

we'd become

two quiet activists—

no longer fighting

the clumsy conduct

of each other.

But today—

the plainer eye sees.

My body knows

what home means:

a place to hang the coat,

to place the hat on the hook,

to leave the sun

and step into the quiet,

closer

to the dark

where the end waits

naked-handed.

She waves.

And I,

still visible,

wave back.

Marni Fraser

0917.2012

Image, “The Cabinet of Curiosities Lounge”
Las Vegas | 2026