The One I Saw

Before you, there were empty chairs,
names I could no longer call,
and evenings when the silence
seemed to settle through the walls.

I lifted both my hands to God,
with nothing left to prove.
“Use me,” I whispered into darkness.
Then the telephone brought you.

For weeks, your voice crossed all that distance.
I learned its pauses, held its warmth.
Before I ever saw your face,
I had begun to make you room.

And when you stood before me,
gold gathered in the glass.
I thought the light meant answered prayer.
I did not think to ask.

There you were—
one face within a thousand pieces,
each turned a different way.
I loved the one who looked toward me.
I waited when she looked away.

My hand rose slowly to the mirror,
five fingers open in the glow.
I wanted nothing from your beauty
but the person I believed I knew.

Some fragments held your tenderness.
Some would not meet my eyes.
I searched them all for that first voice
that kept me company at night.

I thought, if I could love you gently,
if I stayed faithful, stayed the same,
the pieces might grow still enough
for you to answer to your name.

But glass stayed glass beneath my palm.
Your faces would not settle.
And I grew quiet, trying to become
someone each reflection welcomed.

I grieve the woman in the golden light.
I grieve the life I gave us there.
The mornings I had almost lived.
The ordinary things we’d share.

Still, I will not shame the hand
that reached for you across that space.
It offered what it truly held.
It did not know to turn away.

And somewhere past the mirror’s edge,
beyond the room I thought was ours,
my hands are slowly opening again.

This time,
I leave them room
to hold my own life, too.