You must have kept it from him, hoped he’d feel
your doubts in the pulse of blood to your hands
before spiriting you back to life. Of course you couldn’t
tell him that you’d never forget what you’d seen,
that forgetting now would be worse than having never been,
that whatever home you and he might make together
would have to be shared with a thousand lost souls,
that your reunion, though joyous, would be tempered
with an itch that, leaving, you’d just begun to know.

He couldn’t look back so he raised his voice to ask you
what it had been like. You said it wasn’t fear, but a throbbing
pressure against the skull as the answers began
breaking through, and even as you spoke you realized
how insufficient your words were, how he couldn’t
be blamed for not wanting to stay. What could he do
but speak louder as your hand pulled gently away from his?
What could he do but turn around? You were turning back.