Hers was only a faint scratch of color
: a frosting, like true vanilla, melting
eyelash into cheekbone,
her monosyllabic laconicism, almost banal,
cloaking a delicacy of perception that I had perhaps dreamed or imagined.
Her white travels, sea-sounding before she was drowned by smoke and glass and metal,
sent her from Jeonju, across the heart of a particular uniformed logician,
into the folded pages of my longing.
Together we watched swordfish and mantas,
pearl danios, and neon tetras
from the shores of our addiction. I did not say,
“It was you, my love, who opened the paint, brushing me against your palette.”
And from that island of lotus alexin, she did not say,
‘There is me and moon-wind and ancient mummers.’
And though I still measure the cups that crowd into this kitchen of absence,
I have not forsaken the colors of joy and fish and exchanged pajamas.
Still, from time to time, I float toward her
breathing lemon grass,
watching the phosphorescence of memory.
This article appears in Jan 26 – Feb 2, 2017.