As soon as you are gone, my body cries for you to begin again.
My bones remember your weight,
crushing bliss.
Half-spun moments free from thought or care or existing
I am lost, in you.
I am found.

Lover, I do not know whether you are spinning our tale
or unraveling it.
Never has love felt so fragile or unbreakable,
your skillful hands twisting my wishes into ribbons,
leaving them scattered on the floor
next to the denim husks of our discarded selves.

I fear this mistake.
I fear that we will not make it often enough.
Memorizing your outline, I make my provisions for your eventual leave-taking.
Everything must go.

I carry you with me,
escaping into the strange sweetness of your smile.
Poetry is your broad shoulders
turned away from me and feigning sleep.
I do not weep.

Perhaps this is the ending,
slowly fading, credits rolling, riddled with bloopers a casual audience will never see.
Maybe the sum-total of my love for you will be told
in bleary-eyed mornings, wordless hugs on my way out the door.
But Lover, you have forgotten the heart of the one who loves you,
one who knew your soul before your body.
I am gracelessly, unremittingly hopeful
and perhaps this is the darkness that falls just before the phoenix sings,
raising the dawn.