Did You Say— | A Poem on Loss, Absence, and Echoed Love

“The world is gone, I must carry you.”
— Paul Celan

Did you say—

  With astonishment, with horror.

He slid his somber eyes

over the perspiring,

luminescent flesh,

wet skin, 

wet,  tearing eyes, 

the tips of his fingers

slide downward without resistance, nearing 

the beating , elusive,

recurrent, impossible flesh

 

She sighs in silence, I can't hear her,

 she is absent, she has been absent now forever,

 she whispers in my ear something 

far away, vanishing constantly,

 out of my senses

 

I get up in a panic

and run after it, the sound of her voice 

ad nihilum,

to nothingness 

speak louder, please, 

Did you say 

 I love you?

Did you?