By the Water’s Edge

Hands warmed by fire
in one movement part
the breeze bitter drapes.
I borrow from the new lexicon
a phrase intended
to convey the sense
of nostalgia commingled with loss
one experiences standing
on a lake shore at twilight.
Water piling on water,
streams of rough stone.
Too often aloneness and limping
derivative cloud wept.

There was something I kept
in a photograph
that laughed when I laughed
and bled when I…
I colored whispers into your neck.
And flecks of a feeling, all but a feeling.
You were lost in your own gaze,
kneeling by the water’s edge,
as a moonless night
crept into your breast
and stayed there.
I made a remark about a passing Luna moth.
And from your mouth…
A single breath.

-r. miller