the scene of the crime

Poetry Dora Chen

We abandoned the house, pancakes burning on the stove, two mugs on the countertop, music still seeping from the speakers, but that’s not how you know.

It's the soft turn of familiar lips, lingering warmth of half-made beds and lazy morning-voice sing-humming, interrupted mid-living, that’s how.

One of those mornings you asked, didn’t it bother me that your blue could be my green? But it didn’t. Only that your green was greener, your blue bluer, your blues bluesier. It was always that way — I watched you but you watched the world. Sometimes even now, when I wait at intersections, I feel the vertigo of standing beside a skyscraper, and I think of you.

One day she’ll ask. When she does, lie. Lie and tell her we finished the pancakes and put the dishes in the sink.

Sit with her, and by the time the coffee you never drank cools like bare feet running across kitchen tile, I’ll be miles away — you’re safe, love.

Lie and tell her we cleaned up after ourselves. Blame it on me. Tell her I left.