Seconds

There lay dew upon the lily gone sour in the morning light; carelessly an arm flung over my breast, hand soft against my heart, feeling the beats, one per second. Luminous digits flip on the clock, two dots in the middle, flash, counting down, flash, colliding with the future, flash, fading into the past, flash, one per second. Soft breath against my cheek, alien and sleep heavy, measured, exhaled with spent excitement, laced with wine and cigarettes, arousing, erotic, love blooms inch by inch, one per second. I own you in sleep, take you in my mind, idolise you in the first light of day, want you and need you, until your ghost eyelids flicker open, foretelling empty sockets, empty as my grieving womb; the phantom moans and slow dissolves and the seconds turn to stone...