your goodbye was the sunrise,
6:07 a.m,
sprinkling your eyes with crystal shards.

"sometimes the light cuts through people
sharp and slow," you said,
but it doesn't resound with me the way
long exposure photographs
pull mist from the souls of
geniuses

my lips sometimes get dry
without the sweet and sour taste of your
affection,
and i still have to teach my tongue
how to unlearn the syllables of your
name,
but melancholy isn't a newborn baby to
cradle.
it has always been a delicate
whisper,
filling my ears like the first song a child
learns to sing