Sonnet VII

I don’t recall the color of your smile,
the sound of waking up beside your breath,
through dreams you mumble, tripping all the while,
o’er words you say when sleep sequesters death.

o

Memories like San Francisco plaster,

dissolving through the dawn’s relentless mist;

rusted bridges seem to sink us faster,

lest we burn them first with clenching fists.

o

I lost the road we journeyed once to get here,

looked back to find my footsteps faded now,

retracing tracks with eyes untuned to darkness,

tripping into dreams where I have drowned.

o

I can know the clouds in cloudless skies.

I can love you without knowing why.