Continuum

Jumbled, mumbled words,
Escape with her steamy breath,
And mix with the surrounding foggy haze,
Like my thoughts they get in behind,
Back there, digging in for the winter that's already here,
She is watching,
Sees the damage,
Feels the cold through her scarf and red jacket,
I feel it too,
The worst of it all,
To want this numbness,
To come from her doing,
But feeling the stiffness of fingers,
And the crinkling of my boots on dead grass,
Nothing has stopped,
Only I have skipped a beat but already resumed,
My heart rejecting the command to halt permanently,
It's been at this business too long,
Now she is fiddling,
She has places to be and this engagement is complete,
She turns,
My hand jerks from my side but not to full rise,
A spasm really to an onlooker,
After her,
But she is gone,
Ten feet,
Fifteen feet,
Into the fog,
And me in the dead yellow grass.