Forgotten Portraits

Suddenly nobody knows where you are.

You’re just a memory,

an echo,

an idea thin as smoke.

Your last text, call, letter, Facebook post—

only footprints in the surf.

Your edges blur and you become

a friend’s story,

a lover’s history.

Initially, you beat against the panes in set-aside frames

begging to be taken out

and rolled into motion once more.

But after a second winter,

then a third, and fourth,

there comes something serene and warm

behind the haze that smokes the broken hourglass.

Something new

and just for you.

This world belongs to you and yours

and when you glance back and recall your life’s movement

with a sigh of days gone by,

you are irrevocably comforted

having become that final exhale

that hangs in the air after the passing.

You pose

and hold it.

We are all the dead.

I am not apart from you for long,

except for breath,

except for everything.