Saying Goodbye

We embraced, there in the parking lot

of the ordinary.

How could I know your arms were arguing last things?

Your cheek in my hair.

For a moment, I pressed against you.  Goodbyes can be vast.

In a breath, we traded lives.  I didn't know you

were a cliff I had reached the edge of.

Your touch echoed.

I simply followed it like song.

from "How to Get Heat Without Fire," 1996, and forthcoming in "Packing Light: New and Selected Poems,"

Black Widow Press, 2009.

This poem was set to music by Tom Cipullo, and has been reanimated by the talented soprano, Melanie Mitrano.

The song cycle of my poems, "How to Get Heat Without Fire," is on her cd, "Songs in Transit," and can be downloaded free from http://cdbaby.com/cd/mitrano.   Just click on the song you want to hear.

I heard this lyric performed at the 1999 world premiere of the song cycle "How to Get Heat Without Fire," held in the Great Hall at Cooper Union in Manhattan.  I felt like queen of the universe!

Melanie was the first woman to receive a  Doctor of Musical Arts Degree from the New England Conservatory.  I'm proud to have words sung by this firey world-class diva!