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.

***

Image by Bertsz from Pixabay