When we ended

When we ended, I could:

Leave work early, once a week.

Drive to Dillingham Shopping Center.

Park in front of Savers, where Micronesian women shopped

and Filipino sales clerks chatted away in Tagalog.

Take the elevator to the second floor.

Walk the narrow hallway.

Meet with Joy, at Parents and Children Together.

To recall the sixth week of your first trimester.

August 2007. When:

Purple flowers were planted along my ribs,

watered with blood dripping from my mouth.

Your fist dug a furrow above my left eye.

You: Blamed. Apologized. Promised. Lied.

For the first time, but not the last