Unlike early high school days
when, after it ended, came
a week of velvet pain--
sighs and sad moods--until
one day you woke as free
of hurt as the dawn,
                    this time,

the first few minutes of after-silence
stun you motionless. This time
your life becomes a branch
that, wind-ripped from its tree
and dropped in a current's flow,
stays wedged in riverbank mud

month after dead-loss month.
          Until you finally
break away and float
into the rest of your life,
where nothing is the same
as it was before.