Till Dark Comes On

A poem.

photo by Gautham Krishnan

He’s packin’ his leather satchel.
I lean against the porch step.

Coffee’s still warm in his cup
sittin’ half drunk on the rail.

“Reckon you could stay through harvest.”

He touches my jaw,
rough thumb on three days’ stubble
but his eyes already gone ahead.
“Been dreamin’ of Tennessee Ridges.
Kentucky hollows.
Roads I ain’t walked yet.”

“Roads.” I say.
“What’s a road got that I ain’t?”
The smile I crave flickers across his face,
there and gone,
and I see it all…
the love that stays,
the leavin’ that won’t wait.

“You got roots deep as that oak.” He nods toward the yard.
“Mine…” He holds up his hands, empty.
“They itch for different soil every season.
Ain’t fair to you.”

I know the pull.
Been seein’ it in his fidgetin’ hands all summer,
how he stands at the garden edge
lookin’ at the mountain cut
like a dog scentin’ rain.

Now it’s September.
The sweet corn is done
and his feet point toward the gap
and I got no rope strong enough.

“Write when you light somewhere.”
Both knowin’ he won’t.
“Hell, Mason, just…”
But what’s there to say?
Don’t leave sticks in my throat like a fish bone.

“You take that flannel. The red one.”
My last try. “Nights get cold.”

“Austin.” Just my name,
but Lord, how he packs everythin’
he can’t say into it.

I grip the porch post,
splinters and all,
while his boots strike the dirt
and he don’t look back.

I knew he wouldn’t.

I sit till dark comes on,
his cup cold between my hands.

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