Leaving the Old Gods

I. The people who watch me hang my coat on a peg at the office don't even know about that other life, the life when there was you, it, however briefly. To them my body is a fact casual as the weather. I could tell them: That day it rained the way it rains in the New World. Leaves struck the window like daggers. I didn't think about God but the ones we used to worship the ones who want your heart still beating, who load you with gold and lure you to sleep deep in the cenote. II. A girl, he said, and I nodded though we couldn't have known. I would have left him then for ten thousand pesos. I don't know what world you inhabit, swimming there, baby, not-baby, part of my body, not me, swept aside like locks of hair or toenail parings. It's ten years today and you who were never alive pull a face in the leaves of jacaranda, the only tree that lives outside my window. It must be your voice whistling through the office window, though I can't understand your words. Comfort or accusation, I can't understand your words.