Twenty-eight years is a long time to hold
The shape of a man in the palms of my hands.
I was twelve when the world turned suddenly cold,
And the hourglass spilled all its heavy, grey sands.
I remember the shadow, the height, and the name,
The way that the hallway would echo your stride,
But the flickers are changing, no longer the same,
Like a photograph left where the sunlight can hide.
I search for your voice in the back of my mind,
But the frequency’s muffled, the signal is low;
The words that you spoke are becoming refined
Into whispers of things that I used to once know.
Was your laughter a rumble? A sharp, sudden sound?
Did your eyes catch the light in a gold or a brown?
The details are sinking deep into the ground,
While I wear the weight of your absence like a crown.
It’s a heartbreak of silver, a grief made of mist,
To love what is blurring, to miss what is gone.
The father I knew is a ghost I have kissed
In the quiet, blank space between midnight and dawn.
I miss you, I say to the hollows and air,
Though your face is a map that I can’t quite retrace.
But the love is a tether that’s always been there
Even if time stole the lines of your face.
2009 -