These are the things you left behind
in no particular order or array
that I keep in desperate safety
the clothes are neatly put away
shirts and dresses hung in careful closets
panties folded in deliberate drawers
Your coffee cup, that I hold in my hand
the pink one with the black cats
that reminds me of who you are
so much I can almost hear you breath
as I measure the creamer to just
the amount you liked
Cosmetics in a pink case
your makeup always just so
but sometimes you came with none
and were still so beautiful that I always sighed
your hairbrush sits untouched
although I have grown my own now
The things that you gave to me
and the ones I gave to you, kept here
in secret by us in our love, now there are more
I had bought for your birthday and holidays
I keep those too, in precise boxes
with cards and chosen words assigned
Photographs and messages and memories
as I see and read and contemplate
bluest eyes stare back at me
and I read the words of desire and adoration
we fit like puzzle parts in perfect alignment
body and heart and soul
These are the pieces of my broken heart
shards unswept from the unhealing wound
as brittle as my voice has become
no amount of glue will make this whole
that you could mend in an instant
while I stare at the fragments on the floor
These are the things you left behind
and I cannot bear to part with them
in the hopelessness of the downcast
I would but they were grave goods in some lost time
to comfort in eternity’s cold aeons
but I breath and walk and ache for the things you left behind