I do read you,
your words, the milk of healing
for this weary soul.
I read and wish:
Could not one love poem be for me?
Could you have not screamed--if only for a breath--
that I fluster you, and set upon its ear the dream you've kept that
she will return?
Perhaps I am pathetic,
holding on as I do,
and if I am, then again we make a pair...
Physically she's long gone.
But you keep her locked in you,
a memory etched into bones,
and I hold you to me. Three.
I am not pathetic alone.