Lingering

by Roger Howard

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One five o'clock a Monday morning,

created and born of a Sunday night,

we clenched our fists and held our breath

and failed to love our love to death.

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You turned to me and in my ear

you feigned a kiss, a silent tear

and coughed the words

I longed to hear.

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I held your hand, an old man then.

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And died in my sleep.

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You coughed again.

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I close my eyes

and tease your apparition to appear,

a comforting spectral vision

sheltered in the depths

of my deliberate blindness.

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Your memory so close,

you slide down the optic chiasma

and into my darkened sight.

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Your eyes flashing,

as the campfires of a lost expedition

are visible from a distance

in the blackest of nights.

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Evenings

I keep the house dark

hoping you might appear

in a room,

at your desk,

standing before the

kitchen table as you did

without realizing it was

our final day together.

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Whether you appear in my sightless gaze

or in the darkened air,

it is enough to know that while some

light candles to conjure away the night,

I wait patiently in the darkness

for the miracle of sight.

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