“This is nice,” you said, smiling,
and it was —
the lily pads and the cattails bobbed and bent
to the birdsong and the cicada’s hum,
and we laid, calm and content,
below an incandescent sun.

I turned to smile back at you
as you ran your fingers through my hair,
but you froze, and I watched, helpless,
as you began to disappear.

The sounds around us faded
into a too familiar stillness,
the sun melted into the treetops,
the whole bright world extinguished
but for one dim electric ember
and a rectangle of light
which blistered my blurred vision
and sickened upon my sight.

When I refocused my eyes,
I found your perfect smiling face
fixed in two dimensions
in a dark and empty place.

Outside my window,
I heard drunk friends laughing,
and, as I listened to the sound,
you slipped out of my fingers
and fell heavy to the ground.

≋

August, 2020
Park Ex, Montréal