G- at 2 am

You're lying next to me, asleep,
breath pulled tense, as a guitar string,
dreaming of open roads

your foot on the pedal, strained,
the movement too swift,
sure to collide with anything
that came our way

our hands touched, briefly
in a parody of safety
where refuge never came easy.

These things do not last
through reckless abandonment
steaming coffee in styrofoam cups
lighting a cigarette from yours

these thing will never last

I know.

You quietly close the door
on your way out

while I lay, sleeping
this house, emptied
of the incomplete art
you make of me

in canvas,
you make it last
into this lifetime and the next -

I, grained sepia photographs of children,
bereft
you, a chord in hiatus
fingers and fibre
poly web paper cuts to silence

where you will never look
more beautiful.