In your absence the days sigh
and heave. I can still feel
the winged ripples

of your feathered fragrance
fluttering in fragments
through petals

of sunlight in the blossoming
dawn.  How can a person
want too much

intimacy with another?  If I could lift
up these memories like handfuls
of sand, they would sink

through the darkened cracks
of my fingers, sifting
into the shapeless

mass of reality.  I have sewn
these unspoken wants
on a delicate veil,

a tenuous drape billowing
in the shifting breeze
of your departure.