I used to worry that you might
die and I’d never know,
that one day your face would be
clean-shaven and you’d
wear your shiny black shoes
again.

a blue heron flew overhead
as the taste of our lips
together faded
from our collective memory
as surely as the moon fades
with the sunrise.

we threw the
scarlet letters away, they
rest on the bottom of the
bayou, relics of times
passed.