like the things
you said

I ever was
but tomorrow
more

I read four words today.

Just four.

But their weight
stills
me.

I bow my head and
turn them
in my hands.

What are you asking me?
What are you trying to tell me?
What do you see?

I fold the paper.

I close
my
eyes.

Just four words.

I wrote four words today.
Just four.

I bleed my hours into them.
Each syllable
I
weigh.

Like lifting stones from a dry riverbed,
turning each
over
and
over,
until one feels just right
in my hand.

Carefully
carving,
studying
and playing
with each one:
  Which catches the light just right?
  Which plays well with the others?
  What are you trying to tell me?

But mostly,
I discard.

Four words.

All my labor for the day--
Just four words.

It was a good day.

Your coffee rings still
stain
the kitchen counter.

Pinned maps
of the vacation
we never took
hang
crooked
now.

Our pictures on the wall.
Shrines
to what we once
were.

I hold your forgotten
t-shirt —
this stubborn map
of you.

My fingers hover over
the 'send' button,
before
falling
into
my
lap.

Night seeps through
these windows
and your memory
burns.

Flashing
like
broken
film.

I feel
nothing now.

But once—
the sun was fire,
the water cool.

Once…
I heard the wind.
I felt a feather.
I swam.

Once, I fell in love.

But now just this drifting,
this drifting,
away.

I do not mourn.
I take what comes—
feather, plastic,
skin.

I wrap them in salt —
and silence

The man did not ask
but he drifts now
with the others—

The fish, the feathers, the gods.

At the water's edge,
a discarded candy wrapper—
kiting upwards—flitting, flittering,
rising, rising,
falling, falling—
before dancing with the waves.

Waves lap their lullaby
along the shore,
then slip
back to the sea.
The shoreline breathing
with each wave's retreat,
this slow pulse
of land and sea.

In the distance
an orange sun melts—bleeding fire
into a waiting blue.
Minnows skip through the shallows—
sun and shade silvering the fish
in flashes.

A heron calls once.
Then silence,
as a lighthouse's white pulse
traces the rocky shore.

The candy wrapper brushes
against a figure,
a shape,
a shadow,
before floating away.

The figure turning—slowly, barely—
cradled in the rhythm of waves.
Gently pulled by the current,
softly pushed by the wind.

A seagull's feather falls—on pale skin.
Resting a moment.
Before cool water
washes it away.

Everything drifts…
bobbing,
bobbing,
slowly,
slowly,
out to the ocean.

And so it drifts—
this body,
this drowned man,
traveling slowly
to his new home.