Visitor

she came to me 
with tidy proofs
that there could be like and lust and love.
she was a tenderness of strange attractors
boundaries of chaos circling close
solving us into equation 
proving relationship real

she said, “let’s indulge”,
she knew that love 
was like a star observed,
the light in sight a lie,
an intimacy
a creation 
tiptoeing into infinity 
with enviable tenacity
an illumination already dimmed 
before we get to give it name

and we made our legends
like backstories of constellations
until one languid nightmare evening 
when your body lived its expiration 
leaving me in air fog-damp with grief
that nightly calculates a fantasy 
of how you can still live for me

you arrive each night
a foreigner with suitcase of sorrows and partial joys
and an accent obscuring memories spoken,
into the spare room behind my sternum you settle
tease your scent in memory
hang garments in my throat 
choke my breaths with sobs

yes, I’ve rehearsed the speech 
that you need to go now,
that neither love nor grief 
has any claim to permanence 
but each moment set to confrontation
I think who will I talk to
on starless nights
what will I do with all that empty dark
why should I outgrow the need of you