Verisimilitude

Strange, after living so long apart the things that resurrect the memory of your touch; a vanilla-scented candle, the taste of Turkish coffee; or the way flower petals graze my skin so softly; the feel of waves beneath my feet, the light of a parking garage… the aching’s almost too much. Sometimes I think I see you and set my eyes to follow after; but it’s just ardor’s chimera, just a cruel mirage, summoned by someone else’s laughter, sounding from someone else’s street. When I close my eyes the hundreds of miles melt in my mind to a single point in time. We can’t see the water lap around us but we hear its suggestions, and sighing fold in on each other like a glowing paper crane nesting in the waters of the sky. Once again I think I see your face-- the moon wreathed in penumbra-- And numbly grab a pen, recording your ghost’s fading trace in journals of sinew and cartilage.