your ghost still haunts me when I want to share
a joy which oftentimes we’d shared before,
a snatch of song that tastes the morning air
or verse or prose of which you’d have adored

a stumble in my reading, and I curse
the lack of thee within my daily scope,
then sigh, a lack of breath that shears
you from my mind again, a parted hope

but would your smile bring to my heart a pang
of joy or pain or - here I cut the thread:
no matter what the might-have-beens will claim
the sunrise shows again an empty bed.

a few handfuls of tears are, at the best,
the spirits that I’ll offer for your rest