His voice is gone, quickly followed by his eyes, his lips
the heartbreaking smile he gave instead of words, his hands,
the touch, his entire weight suddenly lifted from your body;
he becomes someone you
brushed up against once on the subway
to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden,
each of his limbs
thorn stems
of acacia
one by one
clipped.
The memoirs of each season
found winter, flew south to the perpetual summer cabin
lodged in the woods of your thicket mind;
there are no phones there.
Only gods hiding
in clouds of
of dust.
You kissed Apollo goodbye.
The half written poem he wrote using your hand
that lived inside
the second desk drawer
loses a line each day.
The morning cigarette blows smoke ring holes
in your doughnut head, your eyes glazed.
Even now, as you memorize the words to your favorite poem,
something else is slipping. The spelling of inertia is missing an I,
each state's flower found faded perhaps,
the names of presidents, large blanks.
But his name,
it is stationed at the tip of your tongue
waiting for your mouth to open.
Hand over mouth,
the holding in is a ritual.
Or a seance.
You've lit and blown out all the candles in your house
with all the lights still on.
You wake at 2 am each night
looking for the dictionary, slipping the cookbook beneath the pillow.
The sky in the window seems to have drifted
out of a song you once knew by heart.
The night,
the flowing dress of a
widowed woman.
