Echo

---

You are gone, so it is

as if you are dead. No one

comprehends. They arrange for me the sundered

tops of blossoms in a jam jar by my bedside, yellow

as the crowns of blonde boys.

They bring lemon tarts and want to dance.

They are convinced, like a long illness or tyrant,

you have been vanquished.

My friends drink to my new freedom and good health.

But you are gone and I am not fine, having grown in grief

so thin I disappear

like a moon mid-summer, what’s left of me

a glossal hook, latched on air.