A Slave to Buried Bones

I'd rather hold onto your body
cold and slain by frost
than let go and move on
letting you live in memory
because memories are fragile things
so very fragile
and I do not trust myself
with keeping you eternally alive

what if, in the blink of a battered eye,
some sixty years down the road
senility lets your memory
trickle from my ears,
leaving me quietly burdened
with the sense that something had been lost?

no, I do not trust myself
this way is better
to have your viscous skin
coat my hands and stiff knotted knuckles
burning an unwanted image
into that sterile, rosy glow called afterlife
I would rather cling to what you are
(rather than what you were)
until this is the only truth
(the only solace of the atheist)
and I will hold you until any previous recognition is overwhelmed

one day, I will never know how I tasted your lips,
plump, and shining without crease
or that in midsummer your laughter rose like smoke in twilight,
and your gray eyes welled with joy as you told me how you loved the gloaming!
Bygone days, bygone days, alas!
I crane your unyielding neck towards my breast
and graze brittle lips that taste of salt and earth and things foul beyond depiction
I will stay until sickened by the death-scent
that has replaced lilacs and nectarines
on the palate of your skin
I will stay
until even your laughter
has become the haunting sound
of leaves breaking underfoot

because it is winter now
and summer is, at best, a memory
as these hollow, weathered bones are now
just a storehouse for such fragile things