The time between

Somewhen in my imagined past

There is a girl still waiting
by the driveway
for her dad
to take her in his pickup truck to the dump, to the store, to the local racing club
knowing they'll to talk about science, about college, about people, about the future
real things, she knew.
She didn't know how she knew, but she knew, and she would save the memories for discussions.

neither the girl nor her father could know that for the next decade, he would leave each month without knowing how to say goodbye. And, she would get used to saying goodbye without knowing that he'd left.

She would spend the next few decades finding men who couldn't recognize her; who had a certain brand of humor and critical nature, and learning, painfully, by trial and error, to stop waiting and leave them instead.

"Just how lonely ARE you?" asked the Voice
The Heart stayed silent, knowing that the Voice speaks from the overflow


It is no wonder
that while Odysseus stole the stage at the time,
the character from the Odyssey I will always remember is the unnamed hound who,
on recognizing the disguised Master he lost when a puppy
wagged his heavy tail in joy, and finally died.


Filling the time between
there is a loneliness
The mission is to drain it until the empty space is just that and nothing more

no more salt,
no more water
just the space and time