IN THE IN-BETWEEN

We finally decided to leave each other.

To throw in the towel as they say, which
makes me think of our love as some

red-faced boxer—lips ballooning, eyes
disappearing inside themselves—or,

as a laboring woman—belly round, heeing

and hawing. Our love trying to push out
new life, and us, two scared nurses, dabbing

away the sweat on her brow or cleaning

the blood from his busted lip. Our love:
not pregnant, nor a good left hook, but

it did put up one hell of a fight. We chose

to forfeit, to finish it. Our love: some
shitty novel or a board game that just

goes on and on forever—just end it!

Maybe it’s an animal struck down
by a car. I’ve heard deer make the most

human of noises as they die—just

end it. The night we did, we slept
the kind of touchless sleep that follows

a funeral. I woke midday to the sound

of stillness, nothing, and knew where
our love lives now. Our bodies

refusing to rouse to a world bled of it.

Some part of us wanted to stay there,
in the in-between, where the baby

isn’t stillborn, where the deer runs off

into the meadow, where the boxer
just gets up, punch after punch,

and the rounds go on forever.