In rooms still touched by your presence
I move as in water, yet pause to take in
those tokens of you, empty cup,
crumpled pillow. The grey dawn’s jetsam,
their dream-washed silence tells about us,
our seafaring love, the small wreckage of leaving.
I slide into bed, where dark and sleep coil.
And a bleary mind somehow comes up with
grieve not, dear love, although we often part –
I try saying them, old words for the old ache.