MY RED SWEATER

"What do you want?"
she called down from the window
a blanket that still smelled of me
covering her nakedness.
"I just wanted
to get my red sweater,"
            I said.
"Who's out there?"
a voice mumbled from behind her.

She ignored him,
hoping I hadn't heard.

After a moment she muttered
that she'd be right down.
She sounded annoyed.

It was sad that I meant
so little to her.
The voice in the window had told me so.
But when she handed me the sweater
I'd given her to keep her warm
on the cold lonely nights,
the voice in her eyes
told me I'd run through her past
at full sprint
and was already gone.
Now I was just a sweater,
handed over without emotion
on her way back up
to the voice in the window.

That's what I'd told myself
as I walked
through my tears,
that I was just a sweater,
tried on,
and tossed away.

I hugged it to my heart
once more.