he stands facing
where the window use to be
remembering the warm sunshine
that use to come through it.
"she always hummed so softly,
so tenderly in the hollow
where the flowers once hung."
the empty bottle's fisheye stare.
the whiskey-burnt static on the radio
dying in a room without light.
the lingering ache of the room
that use to have a purpose, now
just room with no lamp.
"all the words I want to say to you, dear.
are there shadows in a lightless room?
the way your laughter
filled the corners of this morning room
like warm light..."
she loved him in the quiet, steady way
that matters
and only in a kind of night,
in a ghost lit grace,
a shadow folds into her face
and he can spend the briefest of moments beside her
until her face melts back into the night
and the room is only an empty space
in a lightless room.