Thin Love (the remnants of the women i've known)

The remnants of women I’ve known

Oh, how they come

And they go,

All the women I’ve known

Who leave little behind;

Little but trinkets,

Semiprecious possessions

For me to find in time.

I take each to task of memory

Roll them in errant hands

Long divorced from

Acquainted flesh

And cherry lips,

Bleeding roses down

Alabaster, finely sculpted necks

Rooted in the heart of

Absent, once beating breasts.

Oh, the women I’ve known,

How they come and go;

More unique in what they leave

Than in what they bring.

More the same for my thin love;

Less the river, more the stream

Less the ocean, but perhaps the sea

-Deep in a center mostly unexplored

Shallow around the edges,

Rimed by pleasant breezy beach.

Left in the sand, a brush I do not own

Or laying in the corner a book I do not know.

Each a moment left behind

A remnant half remembered

A name and a face I can never

Quite place nearly as well as the

Pointless things, the shoes she usually wore.

But I am not sad, no never that

When I wake to find another slipping

Past my loose fingers towards my open door.

For when she leaves there will be something

She leaves, beside my bed or in her, their, drawer;

Beside the chair where the two usually sat, across from a

Painting given to me by Precious, or perhaps something

As simple as a fallen barrette; whatever is left,

I will keep for a time, cherished and appreciated

And in my own way sacred and enshrined,

A talisman to figment desire for a receded

Much loved feature; eyes, or scent or taste or lips;

To all the thin loves which never grow thick.