seventeen days by Jonathan Pettit

on the last of the seventeen and a half days
we had of spring (you went to france, I think,
or switzerland), on that last afternoon,
you missed your flight and took it as a sign.

did you plan to apologize, and forget?

did you surrender your walnut brain
to a scurry of venetian squirrels?

did you mistake me for the wave
of my hand? 

that was not “goodbye,” but “fare well.”
that was “go, and return in one piece, if you can.”

well, at any rate,

that was the last of seventeen days
and the end of forty-four years.