One always writes
of one last meeting,
of a farewell
as painful as life’s very end.

One writes of that farewell,
epic, final, devastating,
when you turn your head away,
and pride refuses to let you look back.

But the eyes of the heart remain behind your head,
turned toward the face of the one who, far from you,
had set out for the other side.
Yet you did not stop him,
did not even whisper,
you simply left.

A sudden goodbye,
like a treaty silently signed by both,
filled the air, and the two of you… left,
only to write, later, two sorrowful poems.

False poems, the two of you wrote,
lies, attempts to appear divine
in a human world where words were absent.
Poetry, of course, cannot say a thing.

In vain the effort, in vain the writing,
when you never told him how you felt,
when you let him leave believing
that leaving was the only answer.

Jona Cenameri