Time unfolding, holds
emblems, signatures
as hair caught in
boar brush
smells still of her
the nape of her long neck
bearing sound
tugging through until end
before light has pushed itself
past dim cloud line
warming her hands a little
just enough
just enough.
Where she was
there are now white washed walls
clean and no longer redolent
of those hours, those years spent
would they know if they touched?
The plaster, holding some memory
or reverberating solace
how her wrists looked
playing piano in silent day
with open windows to bird call
hushed by her haunt.
Would they know, if turning
in sleep they saw through half opened eyes
a murmur of her, crossing the room
one black pearl resting against
her warm throbbing neck
how much of us remains
when we are gone? How to
evoke, conjur, return to
remain, stay just one moment more
by her side before
vanishing and eddying across
cold river with the sound only
of onyx oars spent into depths
her hair trailing, thick mist
veiling before long lost
only the sound occasional
a splash or dip into darkness
and then the ache sets in
like a hole unable to be covered up
or crime undone
everywhere she was
now absent in terrible
emptiness, we keen to recall
in desperate hour, when moon
is hidden behind glowering cloud
she walks the earth and is no longer
traces of ourselves built into effigies
I reach and I reach out and still
she is always further
the smell of her in my mouth and nose
the taste of her against my
broken arms
feeling like she were whole
even as she is ether and starlight
I sense her against me in gloaming dusk
moving with agitation, mocking life
forcing a cry
beseeching time and tall trees
hidden faces in darkness
their green heights impossible
as her return
she is gone and still
the clock ticks
orange cat whiskering through high grass
outside, watching with yellow
eyes, birds overhead, out of
reach
out of reach.
Within me a glassed place of a place
cast in silver, in bronze, in clay
the shape of her
a flute, a goblet carrying fresh
spring water as benediction on
hot day, her voice stroking me
from the marbled abyss
she cannot stay, I pull on the
scarlet thread it comes loose
and unraveling her skirts, her
soft blouses, the perk of her breasts
against my mouth, urging, reddening
nipples swallowed by cries
our hands interlinked
blankets and sheets disarrayed
by motion, moisture, light and dark
her candle throat thrown back
devouring a sanctuary of
secrets and thirst
she opens for me again and again
my fingers breathing her need
we are leaves fallen from trees
made into earth and grown
against the cherry tree staining
our lips sweet and bitter
for love is found in mercy
and grace, her sinew and
hunger, baptizing memory
I hold her locket with a slice
of her dark hair growing old
in want, a touch no more
as if she never painted these
walls or grew round cheeked
beneath me, her laughter
caressing the corners with
silver, we sleep our hands
linked beneath thick covers to
keep out Winter and by
Spring I am watching
crocus urge upward
through northern dark
soil, their fragile mouths
opening to sun as once
she took me into her
one by one
til all of me
was found
and
now
without her weight
against me, shy
smile coming from
beneath long dresses unbuttoned
shining hair, falling on
wrinkled sheets
the smell of her still in
my center a thorn
as I stand by the
window its metal latch
open and cold
to my
skin.
Many years hence or was it yesterday
