Contractions

 

He can only hold me when he wants to.

This is how he was built and can’t I understand

he says don’t I know how much it hurts him;

his hands can’t make me shake and glisten:

“I just need you to wait and listen,” he said.

I remember my knees buckled and rug torn

his hands so soft, held ice cold heath bars

fixated by the chocolate at the corners of my mouth,

memorized my eyebrow hairs and begged me not to pluck the strays.

He plays music about lost love.

Don’t these siren songs come close to our silent meals:

clearing his plate he turns off the light

and I couldn’t force a cough for “I’m still seated here,”

but quickly he mutters “Oh, sorry dear,” and I am illuminated in his exit.

I recall a note he left to say “be back late dove,”

in his new found love of efficient cursive;

marveled at how the pen never lifted,

preferring the crisp index card to the soft bend of loose-leaf.

He shivers falling off the work horse.

Shouldn’t I be as pronounced in my weariness?

He laughs in his sleep, slaps the pillow like an old friend;

shouldn’t wake him but the smile startles the impulse to see his eyes green:

“Just something funny in my dream,” he hurries back to his inside joke I couldn’t- don’t- won’t hear.

I will never be able to consider its humor when he is gone.