As I fill the silence with the snap of my fingers

you lay as still as unspoken whispers.

I feel your heartbeat through three layers of clothes

you wore to go sliding on iced over roads.

Now I’m reminded by the pores in your face

of the elephant constellation we made

the night the tones in our voices changed

You first knew me as a poet.

I first knew you as a ghost

and since then we have become

a hauntingly beautiful prose:

The blackest of crows, the whitest of doves

the greyest of lovebirds in the greyest of loves.

I derive meaning from material things

like your Hepburn cigar box and butterfly rings.

Found in the bedroom where the bed’s just a mattress,

a make-believe child gave quite the performance.

Windows you fogged with words that could wait

and taken-aback pulled your hat over your face

the night the tones in our voices changed.

You stood ahead on a snow covered road

with the wind in your hair and your breath in the cold.

One year ago we made a snow angel

in the yard of a family asleep in their home.

Notice the sky turn as grey as you wish

and the irony of this is too thick to drip,

cause now you’re in New York

with a new voice, a new tone

and I’ve stopped giving you room when I walk alone.