Exit (first draft, clearly weak - but has potential)

Everyone is leaving

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The woman pushes a glass door aside
You cannot see her, when she turns

She's gone - fine hair flowing

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Everyone is always leaving

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When the autumn began
At the docks

Your guests were boarding
While you were staying, another week alone

Walking back home, the sea grasses
Bent in a soft wind

When you returned, you lay down
And listened to the sea
There was nothing else to do

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They are going across the bay

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My cousin has had surgery

In the bed next door
A man coughs, begs for a nurse, for something

I wonder - is he prepared to leave?

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I drop her off, the lovely girl. She says
"Now I must put on my front - my false face"
She steps from the truck

Entering a home, from which I am forbidden

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They are always going out, always going
Over the edges of hills
Around corners
Into the sky, water, and ground

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She stood on the corner and told you
"When you came here, I would have done anything for you".
Then turns.

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Another disappears into the desert, into Jesus Christ
Into California, or his children, or his money

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Birds in flight formation peel off, one by one
No one knows why they do this, or if they do
They cannot predict which one will drop next

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As for me, I am saying good-bye, in practice
The way I step from the door of the truck,
And how I gaze over a lake, shoulder a pack
Look upon my daughter, or merge with the highway

I'm going too - and soon.

----------------------------------------------------------

A vessel passing across the sea, churns a wake
The buoys bob minutes after it passes

What of us? Is there something remaining
When this cascade of unbearable beauty - closes?

Or, did the pleasure of meeting, of knowing
Even of loving, trail behind us empty
While we exited it, then it, and then finally
Relinquished our hold on the last thing,
And suddenly left forever?