Photo by Ed Dunens

Poem: Growing Older

You,
whom I saw
with star-dusted eyes,
geranium-scented
imagination,
seem more ordinary
than I remember.
More defeated,
like an apartment
right before
one moves out,
empty and heavy
with the weight
of all the furniture
that used to be in it.

You told me you wished
you had cheated
instead of breaking up with her.
Even you have been heartbroken.
Do you remember

when you bought a physics textbook for fun
when we were in eighth grade? Do you remember
when we were walking down the street
and you snatched a leaf from a tree
to give to me? I pressed it in my journal —

green, with all the delicate edges of a fan.