And I hear the requiem across her furniture.
My hands trying to find her, capture what is lost.
My fingertips like strings, evoking her disappearing voice.
Whilst I was asleep, she was slipping away from me.
So no harm would be done.
Silently, my name, my name, my name, in her mouth.
I dream of her and think of her death as surreal,
As something vague in the future.
I look at her face on the photograph and I know her skin,
Her touch,
Her laughter,
Her scent
Are all gone.
I conserve all of her in my muscle memory,
My own body.
She has become formless.
My heart moulds her anew every day.
I’m told to compose myself.
I compose her and all the good she stood for.
I will not apologise for loving her the way I do.
The faceless red glasses.
The books containing her time.
The painting of an open window above her bed.
The way she looks at me when I cry and whisper her name.
I think of her as if she wasn’t dead.
“In a rose garden” by Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912)
Croque-Melpomene 