I found you last night, in my sheets
after clandestine midnight call and return
to relinquish another day to my sleep.
I turned on my side, arms encircling
the pillow I’ve used to train myself
from solitude to presence of a partner,
for when that day may come

and my fingers closed around something
more tangible than the night.  A hoop
the size of a silver dollar, paying
memory forward, immediately rewinding
a week to clarity:  Dancing with you
at eleven a.m. along the tiny peninsula
reaching out into the same lake
had seen our first date nineteen months
in the past.  That day had been too chill
for your Jamaican skin, so we’d remained
in the car.  It had, however, been perfect
for driving you into my arms
                                                      and first kiss.

Last week had been chill, enough, so that
I gave you my sweatshirt to cover
your naked shoulders, the same sweatshirt
that’s lay beside me for a week, in your absence,
exhaling your musk and cinnamon and berries
like shepherds to my slumber.

A week he’s held this secret:  How he carried more
than just your scent.  I brush the smooth glass
of my phone to wake its face, to beg its grace
and light to illuminate what I already see in my mind:
The thick scarlet earring I thought I’d forgotten
we discovered had disappeared while we danced.
I run the lips of my hands along the loop, tasting
the recollection of this crimson against your caramel,
and I remember how recently I languished, laughably,
over the fact I’d never find strands of your woven
tresses lingering, behind, after we’d been together.

I remember the pale, orange-pink choker
that fell between the seats, how I hung it
like a signpost from the rearview mirror
until I could see you again.  I remember
the black, silk bow with which
your niece had adorned you,
and how it held your place
in the cupholder, til I saw you
again.  I run my fingers around the edges
of the semblance of the shape of the life
I see at your side, the lean and lilt
of one red hoop and how it waited for me
in its hiding place, until it was the right time
to take me back.  And I realize

you never truly leave me, I never truly leave
you.  I am always carrying something of you

in the wound of my departure,
in the holes stretched open like a sigh–

the universe spilling breadcrumbs

to guide us
back.