where all had been touch and breath holding, there exists now latents
on the heart, small healing scratches, cuts of a love
left lingering like
the sweet sulfur smell of snuffed out
candles, twisting, coiling
in the nostrils, smoke in the
mind's eye still holds her smile, her wrinkles
when she laughed
never known again, never beholden, again
no pet names no drawings of her sleeping no fights no more
lingering like damp bedsheets of a long hot night,
cool hands along the back, those healing hands, those hands
of venus, of aphrodite, those hands and that long long body,
the body that so slowly turned
away,
or really, turned back, to another, the other
to the house and the cars, to no more tears,
and hoping things work out, that body that self
took it all back, and now lives...no more regrets,
regrets which stood stacked like cord wood,
no more tears no eva cassidy my god that's so beautiful tears.
No promises, no hurts no regrets no more any more...
like a sunburn, like the sun burnt in the retina, like after burn
damage to the eye that hurts
when you close it, it is still there, still seen, still felt
nothing lingers like it, like the dust of a sunday afternoon
like the Times and cigar smoke, like the smell of her hair...
the room furnished for her is bare, and growing musty,
and will likely never be returned to again, except when i wish
to visit, alone, the part of her left behind,
the last spoken sorrows of what might have been,
the grief of the us that can no longer be,
and feel once again the swell in my lungs,
as I speak her name,
and the way my heart stopped whenever
i heard her say, "Hi, baby"
