The Last Slice

On the last Friday of March, I met you in our usual spot. 
In the old baseball dugout, hoping not to be caught. 

I brought you three oranges and set them along the bench. 
They perched, like three wise men, along the splintered ledge. 

Weeks earlier, when I first held you against the dugout wall, 
I knew it wasn’t a matter of if, but when, I would eventually fall. 

Especially when God's golden hour rays baptized your face,
my brittle, weary heart could not keep a holy pace. 

Worshipping your neon eyes, my hands in your hair,
I knew at that moment we would have no ordinary affair. 

Springing forward, I tried to keep my feelings hidden,
jaded from years and years of being hard-bitten. 

So, on that Friday in March, when I offered fruit from the mart,
no longer timorous, I was also offering you, my heart. 

You savored the oranges, exposing each in one long, unsevered peel.
The same way you have been savoring my heart, intending only to heal.