Of Pining

The echoes of your last words rest in my lap.
I cradle them, the 'in between's, in between my fingers
rolling them aside with the 'and then's, and then
I lay them down upon my bed.

They squirm restlessly, kicking up and turning
about themselves endlessly in the heat of the dying
sun beams seeping through the window-blinds
in bars of floating dust at dusk.

A feel a fever upon the 'this is it's, thinking "is this it?"
and move the 'it's over' over to the cupboard in fear of illness
and sit upon the bed again to cradle the last bits of
breaths lovingly in my arms.

I hear a scratching underneath the mattress and set down
the 'someone else' somewhere else upon the bed and kneel
to the ground, lowering my head and neck and body
to find the reflective tapestry of your eyes.

In the growing darkness of the setting sun I pull you out
of a shoebox, gazing down your dress and posture in the delicate
pasture of my bedsheets as the cries of echoes drop with
the deep, red light that both fades and grows.