Your letters are packed
in an anonymous brown box,
the blurred pictures we took
not suspecting you were, even then,
becoming a ghost.
Our love was massive, a continent
set like a table on the backs
of four elephants. We lived there foolishly,
squandering the days we didn’t know
were scarce, standing on the wooden bridge,
already the hook in your collar, soon to be
hoisted up, already the bulbs
buried in your chest that would bloom
like the lilies on your grave. Our days
were standard: a phone call,
a hurried kiss, a netted bag of oranges
that burst, the bruised globes rolling
between our bare feet.
We didn’t know to ask the favor
of mercy, a few more
unmarshalled mornings
to wake to the sounds of construction,
nails and hammers, drills and saws,
the neighbor’s dog and his abandoned bark.
Commonplace. Would we have touched
one another differently? Said anything other
than what we whispered into
each other’s mouths, our lips
closing over the words, intercepting
our voices: yours, that has all these years
been silent, and mine still trapped
in the cage of your body that floats
ungirdled, beneath the earth.