A Different Tonight: A Ghazal

We could have been sitting at the table, reading each other’s tea leaves tonight,/
could be predicting the stories that will happen after your train leaves tonight.

I could have made you a salad, dicing tomatoes over the sink as you sing/
a naughty lullaby and look for bad spots among the lettuce leaves tonight.

The trees are gilded, now, and we could have walked among the birches with/
our gloved hands in our pockets and our feet wading in the leaves tonight.

People in the store would have asked what we are doing buying ice cream/
and as I counted out the dimes I would have said that “he leaves tonight.”

Yesterday, I bought those novels that you liked as a kid, and we could be/
reading aloud to each other as we smelled the newness of the leaves tonight.

Today we are spending time apart from each other because neither of us/
asked to spend it together, and I think the last chance we have leaves tonight.