In a mirror cracked and
framed by hair
unwashed for too many
Sundays was a face long
buried in an eighth circle where
she will be two days and a moth-eaten
aquamarine sea away
by the time you wake and find
she wasn’t the answer
to the longing left
over in the bottom of your eyes.
Busy turning over new leaves,
you will have by then forgotten
the dirt under your fingernails,
and she won’t remember the sound
of your voice singing as
you fed her cereal with a
borrowed spoon the day before
she left.  Ten years from now on
winter nights when even
the cold tastes bitter on
unpracticed lips, you’ll fall silent
and wonder as stiff-backed she
traces your name in silence
with her tongue, paints it
carelessly in invisible words
for all to see who can.