I thought that you would fade from me

The way daylight is taken over

by night.

I could see distant indigo

through the window

like a warning of what was to come

and when I looked at you

saw what wouldn’t be—

like watching a full moon

as already shrinking, like

running late. It was as if

we’d reached some peak

and from there on in would be

the using up of you,

the chipping away of you,

until eventually you’d fall

off—

be ushered into memory

as something pallid and polite

like Oh, I remember your mother,

which is nothing like you, who

wore big skirts and thick denim

and laughed.

So I tried to stop it. Pushed my heels

against the blue of the night

edging in and dragging us further

away; held onto your things

with my fists and tried to write you

down on paper while I still could to keep you.

But it was only when I stopped—

opened the doors to the night

and lay down to let it do its worst,

that I saw you there: full

and real and easy.

Tess Ritchie

Tess Ritchie is from Dunedin and currently lives and works in Melbourne. She studied English Literature at the University of Otago.