I have reinvented you, bit by bit, taken care to erase the notes

scribbled most carelessly on folded corners, taken time to

remove the binding, to invert our shared memory into a lifeless still.

All our summer evenings spent in reading strange new literature
smoked fashionably

taking time, between long deliberate drags to notice

the rise and fall of the nocturnes, as we progressively forget

our conversations, the noise of our words killing all thought.

Poetry dries like blood

Between pages, across miles

Pressed between your lips

Like a waif, like a tear lost between

Fingers curled infinitely into a fist.