51.

How you left me with your foot in my arms

Your foot, & nothing more to take into the new year

52.

How you left me

Like the sigh after that last kiss

I cannot reach back into last year

to grasp at that sigh

I cannot hold on to a moment

not a moment so firmly stuck to the past year

53.

You left me like blood seeping from bone

at the touch of salt — beautifully and completely

54.

Like a blood dropping onto a clear puddle of water

A ripple from a red explosion & then delicate spidery tendrils

& the water is pinked

as if it was never clear

as if you were never there

as if you were never part of the bloody foot I hold on to

55.

So sing, Mary, sing

No one else remembers that song

Sing anyway

When you forget this song

then you will come to know

how completely you left