❝

The room is still overfilled with our
lovemaking, or those evenings where you slept
against me while I watched the willpower
of love reconcile itself from beyond death,
in an old Ray Milland movie
in glorious black and white. I guess we saw
ourselves in them because of their history,
or age difference, or the way their lives were flawed.

Maybe it was a mistake to keep the house
with the same rooms, with the same spiraling
staircase that I climb in my dreams,
early hours with ghosts weeping, the hours
about nothing but re-reading our serenades,
the mystery of diffused light that looks like you.

❝

I miss you because memory
is a kind editor.
The past is a long scroll and
in it is the story of us,
told with gentle metaphor, and
words that bring
you back and back, even as you
lie there, lying.