my mother's wedding dress
cut through the middle,
a red ribbon slashed against skin
unwound, destroyed, unknown

the moonlight glints off your fingertips
catching the glow—“just for you,” you say

the voice entwines with my ear, winds down
to my heart, pooling at the bottom of my chest
like a loaded gun, waiting for the trigger
to be squeezed just so, ending this sweet dream again

words that can only be whispered
in dreams and midnight longings;
the melancholy lilt of a time fading
echoes into the silence, unbound

in sudden grief and desperation
words I cannot even bear to dress
in floral or elegant prose
escape from me, in a wailing breath

where have you gone?

An oath uttered to none is an oath unbound,
but the watchers, the gargoyles of the sky and the earth,
are all witness in the night