Lingering & Untitled

One five o'clock a Monday morning,
created and born of a Sunday night,
we clenched our fists and held our breath
and failed to love our love to death.

You turned to me and in my ear
you feigned a kiss, a silent tear
and coughed the words
I longed to hear.

I held your hand, an old man then.

And died in my sleep.

You coughed again.

Untitled

I close my eyes
and tease your apparition to appear,
a comforting spectral vision
sheltered in the depths
of my deliberate blindness.

Your memory so close,
you slide down the optic chiasma
and into my darkened sight.

Your eyes flashing,
as the campfires of a lost expedition
are visible from a distance
in the blackest of nights.

Evenings
I keep the house dark
hoping you might appear
in a room,
at your desk,
standing before the
kitchen table as you did
without realizing it was
our final day together.

Whether you appear in my sightless gaze
or in the darkened air,
it is enough to know that while some
light candles to conjure away the night,
I wait patiently in the darkness
for the miracle of sight.