Leaving Song

Orange dust coats the toes
walking this ruddy strip
of crumbling sidewalk
where I parse the beats
of moths in the betel
palms: this is your hair
falling, your voice slipping
in a kind of leaving
song. Now the fronds
blacken the rim of the lake
where we made plans
for when we would return
to the States. The note
that was your laugh –
I heard it last
over a shoulder midday
in hot season
walking to our cars and
hardly believing we wanted
the rain to start. The sound
plays tricks like the heat
wanting to stick.
For days then weeks
I heard you
in the bulbul’s whistle
up in the yellow blossoms.