By: Tamara Kreutz
There is no stopping this slow ebbing, no way to turn back the clock. The forces of gravity are
invisible and unshakable, and no matter what we do or how we feel about them... Over many millions
of years, we’ll continue to grow apart.
~Marina Koren, The Atlantic, September 30, 2021
You are leaving
us, an inch
and a half
a year.
Like me in high school,
ghosting my first
boyfriend, you will shrink
and dim—so minutely,
a handful of a million
years down
the road, we’ll look up
at night and think, “The moon
used to shine
there, didn’t she?”
Are you sneaking off
for a weekend
of self-care—sun
salutations and facials
to smooth your face,
weathered by so many
years of squinting
down at us? Will you
then return, renewed,
to pull our oceans,
mark our months?
Or have you fallen
out of love, tired
of waxing and waning?
Are you fatigued from dancing
in our orbit?
Lighting our darkness,
giving predictable tides,
while we offer nothing
back besides
flags and footprints?
You pull
away. We
yank back cords
of our magnetic energy,
a celestial tug-of-war
you will someday win,
as you twist knots loose
and spin away towards freedom.
Tamara Kreutz is a middle and high school English teacher who has taught at international schools around Latin America. She is currently on hiatus from teaching to stay home with her young son. Poetry is the way she creates meaning for herself in the stories happening around her.
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