Slowly Losing

Hiatus
Foreboding absence in simplified patterns
Waking, moving, eating, working, watching, sighing, sleeping
Which to skip?
Which to fill?
To fill with what?
A gram, a grain, a tick a tock
Strewn across wood
Kicked beneath wool
Trampled by small feet
Picked up and repaired
Laid beneath wreath
Where we stood for photos a-years ago
Plump bellies and warm cheeks
Plays and dance and caramelized romance

Redacted
Smudged black by swab left nothing
A sentence halted, verbs shorn by unseen pressure 
Disjointed and meaningless, leashes left loose on miles of clear glass
Which to snag?
Which to say?
To fill with what?
A hymn, a psalm, a nighttime song 
Exhaled through blay linen
Fragrance and spit regurgitated 
Keeping the air free, untethered 
From grey photos of you
Straight cane; white lily dresses 
Unintelligible—forgotten. 
No matter what smudge hath, lay you to rest.

Dorian LaGuardia
2020