when you leave me (first)

when you leave me
first i do not
think
but

trace your still-warm spaces (indentations, marks, empty) on a circuitous route

i may unwittingly prepare
for a long
drought

storing substitutes in heavy pockets

i may hibernate

retreat to sleep under goosefeather fluff (the high as low as pillowed downs and just the window's light come in)

i may move
real
slow

or do the thing that's closest, like whatever my hand finds to touch (the loads of dishes, someone else's stuff)

i may
get stuck

that pile of papers, the messages, the clothes (whose job it was not mine to fold)
even the piano

i may eat
feeling unsatisfied

if I
am lucky I may

see something

a seed catalog with pink azaleas, seafoam nail polish, lavender bath salts, periwinkle stockings
or
that island candle I made a few weeks ago

and I will light it
but

I leave you
first
when my voice breaks
the sound barrier

- sk, 2/9/13