Golden hours

I hear your voice in a whisper in the windswept
rake of fallen leaves and creak of late winter
tree limbs, words never spoken by you or anyone
else, passing over the dead and reborn alongside
the seraphic commentary of birds. I feel your
warmth in golden hour as the sun sinks into
hillsides and I say a prayer reserved for you
and only you, something only you’d understand
for this language knows no tongue, and as the
moon rolls along the sky in its black silky film
I taste the air of half a life ago – your hair
flowing down my shoulder, body soft and
connected to mine, talking to dead stars
as one night peers into the other.