I can hear you. You whisper to me.
Like a midnight vesper with your voice
cloaked in darkness, aching to be seen.
You are intangible. I reach and yearn
but you are lost.

I imagine you sometimes in the eyes
of the Lladro figure on my bookcase
the last thing you left to me
because no one else ever loved it the way you did.

She still feeds her swans, you know
that Lladro with her bright gaze
and tiny archaic smile.
She reminds me of you.

Sometimes I wonder if you’re there
and that’s why I hear your little voice
or smell your sweet perfume,
the twirl of her porcelain umbrella
wafting it through my bedroom’s stagnant air.