This isn’t about holes in 60 denier tights

that have nestled moth balls through 9 month nights

repudiating Texan heat with fierce hopeful yarn

no, this isn’t about them, that, flotsum

nor the tangles in your hair from making love

unexpectedly, listening, late to emigrate birds cooing

as your skin turns from gold to lemon, through filters of real and false

this isn’t about trying to remove the pain

with a butter knife and finding only blunt trace

how the ache inches further, as vanishing scars still blister

our passports resting on a pile of books, unread

as if the only choice is consume or flee

before doors get battoned and children

forget the chubby cheeked youth they trade for blue light

where he will never call again

communing with worm, hummus and lost acorn

no, I already know, an advance on premonition

his death will wrought my disintegration

so, we dance today because today is the only day left

before the world turns crimson and gives up its underbelly

all the cut-out pains of old, where your photo should have hung

are emptied walls with the smell of petricor

this isn’t about loss, this is about mirrors felted out of focus

I stand nude watching words describe years on dermis

feeling you behind me trying to gain admittance

haven’t you read about frosted drinks who claim no ice?

people who cannot trust, even the thinnest owning?

We both know if I turn, you won’t be there, you won’t be there

I swear I hear you sigh and murmur this isn’t about losing

memory touches me with your hands, your mouth, I blink

sightless, feeling by touch, where the knife sunk deepest

the weight of carrying you in my heart where death defies passing

Orpheus swallows his coin, depths beckon their sensual consumption

Charon sliding his oar through the water of Styx as if it were softened glass

today is the only day left, tomorrow proffers no do-over

a length of mourning is always defined by the survivor.