Because this is what we had left

When the fields were gone.

Because our feet had become scorched

On cracked tarmac.

Because the unthinkable

Had become the inevitable.

Because of those things, we came here.

We sat on the edge and watched,

Our feet dangling.  It felt

Like a metaphor.

You said poetry was made for this.

That this was the moment it mattered most.

So we sat there and wrote it,

The final one, together.

Using words we’d scraped up from

What was left.

When it was finished I read it aloud

And then you tore it up and

We fed it, word by word

Into the wind.

And then because it was too late

To say anything else

We just held hands

And stepped over.