ONE THRONE

THEN

by Emma Fissenden

 

then: wondering, did you plan it this way

when I found you crying owl-tears?

did you know when we sat—cross leg ged on the street-corner

telling wild stories, you freckled girl

with your eyes full of nebulae, never

 

knowing how much of the tree lines above us,

the pavement beneath your moccasins as you played

with a single daisy between two dirty fingernails,

the sound of crickets crying—

did you never know how these would shape my love for you?

Helpless as we slipped

the months away wrapped up in one another, drinking deep

the confusing self-lies we spilled

and exchanged to soothe our skin that skittered

every time we held hands at the back of the classroom, secreted

beneath a battered chemistry textbook—

 

never realising we were too young

to know these scattered moments were predesigned

by our adolescence. My love was not shaped by the tree lines, or

your moccasins on the pavement, or even by the mournful

crickets—no, not even those made me fall

for you.

 

It was forgiveness.