I lost you,

it sounds better in French; disparu

you were lying dead at my feet

in the street, bleeding scarlet from your head

in the sea, drowning beneath heavy water

turning blue, turning to stone, turning away

and none of the above

you were still alive and I lost you, disparu

all the love I had, all the words conjoined

obliterated

as if the snow storm of 2020 had barreled over us both

erasing those years, those precious tender hours

I remember for us both, but you do not remember for me

you are as dead as if you were fosilized

an old bone caught in amber, fly, without flight

time yawned and your head dropped,

no guillotine could have cut it off cleaner

you walked, ate, slept, sexed, dreamed, laughed

and still you were dead, absent, lost, disparu

like the cat I buried in my father’s house, her skull dug up when

they replaced the trees, saying they were old and full of sap

I cried then; unsure whether I wept for the trees and their forlorn

hatcheting or the pearl feline unearthed and uncared for

loved in life, buried in sod and loam, no safe resting place

temporal, like your forgotten self, unable now to

embrace, meet my eye, purse your lips in kiss, recognize

when I ache, hurt, am lonely, am in need of

you, you who is not here, lost, disparu

you giggle like a child, stare vacant, reduced, ionized

and time, gleeful with her light-slippered stealth

sloths more from your whole with each chuffed breath

lost not in forest, nor ocean, but emptied mind with

ransacked shelves, nothing permanent, nothing remaining

but the void of yesteryear, past passion, past intensity

a series of words without home, key thrown somewhere

unknown, I walked the length of the canal staring at

the filmy opacity of water, still unable to articulate

exactly what had departed and what remained

in the silhouettes and shadows

I just knew I had lost, disparu, you.