saudade

i wonder, love, if you remember me
when you have washed me out of every sheet;
when there is empty space where I should be.

(your laughing face, suspended in the sky)
(your mouth’s sharp corners slipping into sly)
i wonder, love, if you remember me

(the life restoked by every little death)
(floodwater in my lungs but, somehow, breath)
when there is empty space where I should be

(your way of catching words like falling eggs)
(the perfect knitwork of our tangled legs)
i wonder, love, if you remember me

(the way you stand invitingly alone)
(your fire, your air, your water and your stone)
when there is empty space where I should be

(your sudden laughter in another room)
our warps and wefts invent an absent loom.
i wonder, love, if you remember me
when there is empty space where I should be.