Go ahead and speak, but not before you make my coffee, just the way I like it, warm
with enough sugar and creamer and caramel to make my dentist weep. Not before the end
of our song—life’s just around the bend, you know this—or before you draw me in,
before you see a book I might like to read—not before you pick it up, caress the cover
in your hands, skim the back cover, flip to the last page like you know damn well I always do
in an effort to lessen the blow of the end—Are you done? Are we done? Go ahead and speak,
but only after you learn French, s'il te plaît, ne pars pas, after I’ve counted every freckle of yours
in one go, connecting them like constellations—Orion, Crux, Ursa Major, Sagittarius—
there are still so many Novembers, so many days left in the calendar you bought me, I can buy more, there is still time, I can buy us time—and your mouth is forming the word,
the good on your tongue is anything but, I am anything but, and the next syllable is in English, not in French, it is the opposite of hello and is said so quietly it sounds like the voice of another—squeeze my hand, squeeze it three times before letting go, walk away swiftly, until I am empty
like the fingers you left colder than my coffee.