The Day I left Frances in Harvard

And trees were on the green side
Of Summer’s exit
And all was itemized like a religion
She came up through
And away time was caged in a beat
Arranged at the cost of TV anger
In a hat and a hop and seven bullets
And fifty rented diamonds
It was the day before the before and after
I gazed at the shades of truth
A long baggage ripped my vision
Perhaps the illusion of America
Made me pay for fatherhood
I called within
but I stood in the open fields
Understanding shaped her eyes
“Be strong” they said
And love was strange to foreign eyes and staged its drama
For all I loved the word “future” was my instant assassin
This was the time of icons dressed and undressed
In purple and black and bling
There was no space except for feeling
Back were our fishing trips
The little girl that jumped from her bed to get Santa’s presents
Seventeen years setting time our conditions laid in Cambridge
And I tried to give and I had nothing
And she tried to express that we weren’t; that we are
I offered my watch as a reverence
A sign that time had proven stronger
For all I loved laid in one embrace
Half me
Half the strength of Massachusetts