The brush of a fingertip across violet petals,
the rich smell of your lingering cologne... 
This is how you left me:
with echoes of feathers in my hands,
fading and fragile.

The subtle sorrows that come as cobwebs fade
from glistening silver to a dull gray
are no different than the shades of clouds
I watch pass across the dome of eternal sky,
knowing you are gone.

The world is no longer what it was,
our dreams cast out as the stardust of past lives;
but scraped skin is sensitive and
a broken heart ten thousand times as clear.

So let me tell you how I see you:
how the silhouette of your back edged in silver
flashes in my dreams like sun spots from gazing
too long at Radiance itself.

You are tall, tall enough that I stand on my toes 
to link my arms around your neck.
Your eyes are brown, silently sad as
I press lips to your stubbled cheek.
My fingers correct the knot of your crimson tie.
You left it wrong, so I would touch you to fix it.
When you stroke my hair, I can hear the ticking
of that favorite mechanical watch.

And when I tell you I love you, not now, but then,
It only makes the sorrow flower.
So let me tell you I love you now, not then:
Not as lovers do, but as an impressionistic 
painter presses his lips to his dried canvas.
I love you for all the things you were,
all the visions we painted together,
though each has slipped from my fingers
into eternity.