little bird

I find you feather by feather. I find you swaying in that gossiping wind. Lost in thought or missing sleep, your eyes every fixed instinct, every asking ever shed. Each further picture a drawing breath, a fleeting shadow. The press of fingertips, bare against the air. The chill of your silence, the depths of scent.

It is written in an instant. The force of habit scratching at the limits of time. The press of grammar against the restless thought, all the leadened terms flayed into grace. The sentence ends all that is served, punctuation the rhythm of a crawling lilt, almost an accent, almost only a dialect left to tell the story of some lost departure. Sin just that little stolen warmth, the turntable worked just so. The record little more than hiss and pop, the song that never rests.

There is not an end in sight, once all the trouble with seeing is done. You miss one thing, I miss another-- a life stretches in the catching up. I find those moments that slipped, stepping on your shadow. I find those limits always following your wake. Fingerprints and ash and grease, you cling and slip my dreams. A wisp of flavor, a puff of breath. Your absence that only missing touch of proof.