Rite of Passage

Time takes its toll
Wearing the freckles off your face
as my thoughts of you become paler.

In the night you are re-painted
as my unconscious enacts your rebirth;
You come back to us,
our arms outstretched
You look fresh again, youthful
and animated for my indulgence,
where silent photographs of you fail.

Sometimes we meet two nights in succession;
once for my grief and sobbing,
again with you smiling and warm to hold.

Time took its toll on you,
you are not here.
You were then, then..
was a line drawn where you died?

Not so simple for us, we cannot draw that line,
here, holding your living memory,
which threads through our lives.
You must die so many more times, with us.