shed

there is a spirit of her
in the things she wears
when she disrobes and
disarms after a long day

and she leaves a pile of
clothes in the bedroom
and with them she leaves a pile
of echoes in the
small heap of pants and
blouse, socks and bra

and she loosens her
life and unlatches her
clasp on a certain reality
outside these walls; her
release of a cold day
is the emission of
her essence particles

in the atmosphere of this
place i find her everywhere:

the favored pillow that crowds the
headboard;

the aborted sandal beneath the couch;

the worn hair tie hung on the knob
of the pantry door;

the fragile handrail that creaks with
the weight of the years;

the rim of the cup left to wait on the counter;

the heavy bracelet, adorned and
dimmed in the darkness of a shadow;

the blanket she pills in the night while she sleeps

i revel in her presence
in every moment shared
together as lovers

but feel her absence the
way i sense the waves of the sea,
how they rock the soul
when i can
hear them on the air
miles distant from me

all of these things
and every one of them
not witnessed thus far
emit a spectral ode
heard in the bones
of those future comers

who traverse the
streams of the dreamers
and are in tune
with the vibrations
made by the heartstrings
of former lovers

i believe in ghosts in
that simple way: they
haunt from the discarded
molecules of their flesh
when once they walked
and felled clothes
and touched doors
and breathed into linens

these small bits of souls
shed as easily as my
lover shed her clothes
enter their dormancy
and wait for a future
listener who will
catch them in an
unsuspecting moment

they haunt not from
a pouty rage, but as
a way to reconnect with
that of the living;

they want nothing more
than to be fleshed
again and making
love or leaving rooms
or crying into palms
or applying make up

my lover's left garments
i scoop up and pour
into a washing machine that
will spin out the dirt of
a day, but her mark
is already made

in a future,
they will smell her and
feel the heat of her and
taste the salt of her and
picture the curve of her hips
and hear her breathing at night

the way i love
to know her
she will haunt
them