I wish it didn’t end. I wish I could
have fit. I wish I could have sidled
next to you into your soft moon.

This life of yours; the sea in the
mornings and sun still at night. It
mustn’t make sense to you why I left.

And sometimes, in the quiet of the
afternoon or when nobody’s looking,
it doesn't make it to me either. Sense,

I mean. And then I remember those
rings around me, those ones I drew
myself, that inexplicably stopped me

from going any further. At night I can
hear you across the state line, stretching
your arms out in semisleep and the lump

lift in your throat, in that home it has
made for itself up there. The one lying
flat with the emptiness of your double

sheets or the collection of bobby pins
I forgot in a pile next to your bed. The
small things that say ‘she was once here

and now she’s not’. I’m not sure what
hurts us humans most - what happens
to us or the untapped possibilities of

everything that could have been; all
the dance floors we could have danced,
all the parties tended to in pairs, Tuesday

night Deliveroo and someone’s birthday
to make a deal of, to rush home to
on a Friday night, ‘I’ve got the wine,

get the UE Boom humming’. I’m sure
by now you’ve got an answer to both.
You’ll know much more than I do. You

up there, me, here. The endless summer
of the north, the tramlined lanes of the
south. You and no me, me and no you.

Two cities, two moons.