I’ve filled the emptiest spaces of myself with
the best parts of you
not breathing, warm like an homage
but sterile
remote
a gallery of looped memories
beautiful and untouchable
and convincingly bright
so that no matter where I am
my retinas are tattooed with the space you took in the world
cooking in a scratchy sweater- your electric rants about Jung
drumming jazz on the street corner for the pay of odd conversation
planting kisses in my hands because you hoped they would grow a wife
endlessly reminding me
(from wherever you are now)
that the best things in life weren’t free
and though expensive beyond measure
how graceful- I hardly noticed how much
I was willing to give
just to keep at a quiet distance
this neuronal gallery