You disappear in June, leaving a dent
in my breath. Your rosewood fragrance lingers
while I stare at empty frames. To inhale
nothing is its own religion, a pale addiction
to blank walls, arms reaching aimlessly in bed.
My body becomes the widow of my brain.
Moods fall like rain. Yesterday you were
water; hailstorms on my face,
cyclones on the ocean. Today you are space.
Today I take my first step forward.
The step I should have taken years ago
to own my fate. For grit is my grace,
a fitting intoxicant, my oxygen forgotten
and not what you want in your days.
Years later you return, thin as a cry,
smelling of a tangled life. Your arms full of lilies
as if I were dead. I bed your secret mouth
wearing dimly scented blue. The only shade
I know of you. Afterwards, while you sleep
for days, I remove your shadow,
pin it to my wall like a salt-stained sepia
photograph. My love, we are beautiful
storm-torn weeds, even before you leave again.
***
