There will always – Yawp

I tried to place small white labels

on everything I remembered: 

our bodies framed by sheets,

those fleeting cobblestone meetings, 

your shadow. 

I longed to sketch the edges 

between morning and frost, 

to trace letters in the shape-shifting

condensation of the grass,

to paint the strands of us –  

but it was August 

and the crisp stickers 

peeled off your skin

like distant footsteps 

of rain. 

You became the shade: 

expanding, dilating, 

shifting with the coarse angles of day – 

dripping, heaving,

leaking through my cupped hands. 

So I clasped them tight

and gathered the wilting 

glints that remained 

into a little glass bottle

and placed it on a shelf

in a room 

facing the sea 

next to that piece of me

that will always be 

searching for you.