Emily Waples
sunday morning, the view of you, bedside, held
in the sightline of sunlight: i thought: surely this
is forever. or at least its beginning. those were
my words. i never spoke.
the phone cut our quiet; you blurred like a photo
as you rose to reach it. i remember
how you said hello; death spoke on the other
end. you bowed your head, reverent.
seamless as sunday mornings bleeding
out of saturdays, you slipped from under the life
you’d carried on shoulders like a tired child. light as air,
i let myself live awash in you.
monday, white and quiet, sheets creased as if from love
or nightmares, bearing my singular indentation. my heart
beats straight into the bed without you in it, red, tireless
as the beating of wings.
Emily Waples is a student at Vassar College