On the flight home, you call to say I left something behind by Cooper Griffith

Morning falls on sore limbs like dust I ’m afraid.

 I’ll be tired for years, 

hollowed by losing the weight of you.

Learning to live without hands,

like dogs that run laps over the mountains of my shoulders,

peeling back scalps, nail beds, and backs,

digging in our heels at the thief of time.

The southernmost window creaks shut. 

Glassy eyes blink away teardrops; rain drops spit silly, making paintings 

on the creamy white canvas of my neck. 

Wet skin on wet skin piled vertical, 

hypothetical pyramids for those with the eyes to see.

Gummy figures that weave between blankets.

wo twin mattresses take stock

in the center of our room. 

Outside, airplane windows dance the stories

that you told me underneath mountains,

like dizzy blankets on the horizon 

My mind spins like a rotary dial and the sky turns into a film screen of us with our feet off the dock

My lips like running water make promises that next time I will forswear goodbyes and hold you close to my chest, as if my mistake was in letting you go 

We fantasize about a house upstate

I do the laundry you paint the walls

Dreaming of syrupy Sunday mornings at the breakfast table 

I promise that next time there will be no need for solemn silence or airplane windows 

No grief that drapes down wood lined halls 

For the next time that I see you I’ll be doing laundry and you’ll be painting the walls.