dead love 
… it was as though I were a symbol / a finger pointing / a faded billboard / a faded billboard found 
by a wanderer who wanted to find / who was surprised to find / who was afraid not to find

. . .as though I were a solved mystery nailed in place / a sign of something not momentary / a sign of treasure that was safe

 . . .as though I had no choice but to allow your finger to print intimate bruise on any slight adventure of sight  
 
but I was not figmentary 
nor stolid 

. . . I held actual palms open / made fists / flexed fingers / untied knots / unlocked gates / pushed
against doors 
trying to feel immediate / to manage a great catastrophe -- 
when what you revealed to be true / crashed full weight / against what was hoped for  

dead love  
who acted your dumb show in narrow wooden rooms 
who waited like the wolf spider for tiny motions
who ragged and untucked would whine / whose thread will mend my weak cloth?
you who cooed like a pigeon in the morning coaxing / who . . . who . . . who 
can stand to watch me?  who who who can say “I will” / “I will stand / I will watch you”?

I did not hesitate / I spent my thread on your weak cloth
watched your slow progress. . . as if your choice was no choice / as if you had to die 

and now my slow progress 
. . . as if / my dead love / you still must go 
as if even gone / you still must must go 

as I stand not figmentary nor stolid . . . still pointing . . . gone / go

Poem by Jo Mariner / Photograph by Sion Edwards