I watched the dawn break over Baltimore.
The pieces of it fell wordlessly for twenty minutes,
seeping into the stone of the city
as subtly as a basin overflows.

I was high above it all,
standing in the window
of what must have been a penthouse.
Before me lay the bay.
Behind me, a bed only growing colder.

Three hours earlier, you were still awake
in the other room.
I had kissed your face
and said I’d try to see you next at Christmas.
(I wouldn’t make a promise
you couldn’t let me keep.)

I felt my heart break back in Baltimore.
The pieces of it fell coldly from a penthouse view,
like shards of a shattered windowpane,
splashing without promise into the bay below.

I thought I was above it all,
standing wordless for long minutes
in the other room, impassive as a stone.
Before me lay the holidays,
but I could not foresee their subtle joys.

Three hours earlier, you said you loved me.
It had been months
since last I’d heard
those words
from you.
And they wouldn’t—couldn’t—come again.

I know you left me there in Baltimore.
That reality falls recklessly before me,
so every step I try to take is mired by
your memory, flurrying like snow.

We had our time, however brief,
high above it all.
I kissed your face that night;
you said you loved me in the other room;
one of us plummeted into slumber.
I saw your shell at Christmastime, and then I knew for sure:
I’d lost you in an autumn dawn, back in Baltimore.

02/22/2010

Author's Note: This is for Charlotte Jennie Reynolds, the most awesome little girl I ever knew, who passed away from brain cancer at the age of four on 7 January 2010.

Posted on 02/23/2010
Copyright © 2025 Devon E Mattys