beneath my fingers: smooth, polished wood, a breath. and they long to make their way to the still beating of your heart.

                                                    there,

                                                              there,

almost as if unseeing you look past me to flip a page, to paint color over words you must remember,
yet unremembering---

i am here. sometimes i think you remember me. sometimes, like a shade of crayon appearing randomly in your hand, a soft hushed word. silence. no talk of fleeting butterflies today. no sound of your leavetaking.

there, the long silence of an empty hallway.

(for A)

(in collaboration with jacob dominguez)