Room of the Hostage Heart

Covered only by an oak tree,
he found me crying on the lounge chair

out by the back creek. My hair had fallen
over my face—I didn’t dare speak of the sadness.

For all season, I had been happily gone—
the distance between us stretching a silence,

ruthless, thick. I pretended I was not there,
but the weight of my body illuminated my skin.

Looking the stillness in the face, I said
it was about a boy, an end to my age

of infatuation, a ripe fruit cleaved. It was his arms
that answered, like the faint halo of the sun

behind the clouds. I should have known
he knew, for he had lived a life before.