We Made a Run of It

I.
Autumn has dropped off to winter,
pulled back like the corner of the Lover's
Knot quilt you watched me piece for our bed.
We spoke not nearly as much
as I wanted while I worked. You,
content to tinker with some scrap of metal,
some bit of paper. We always had to keep
our hands occupied, mouths,
open slightly with measured intent,
like my breath, when I ran the last mile.
You watched from the window
that last day, air not fighting my lungs.
It is such a quiet task, running, a game
played with the wind and trees:
a disappearing, first, from our bed,
then, from the orchard's ear. Even now,
you see me curl in the corner chair,
muscles, I know, weakening.

II.
I felt you shuffle out of bed
cool summer mornings, before humidity
sat down like some tired fruit picker,
an old widow with calloused hands
from years of reaching, cutting, in the orchard
where you run, mornings like this, alone,
for an hour both of us nearly silent
except for the fall of breath. It is almost
sunrise now and you should return like always,
like cicadas, apple blooms, or harvests.

But today, like the past twelve weeks,
a seasons' worth of weeks, since you left
for drier heat, later mornings, a cooler bed,
you will not slip through the kitchen door,
click the lock, softly to not wake me,
restless until that very lock clicks,
for twelve weeks if that is just how long
it takes to imagine the fall of fruit,
anything to mark a presence
like cicadas or apple blooms.