MARK ANTHONY CAYANAN

The Loss

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If love is in the details—

That first night was quiet.
Bodies unused to rest, made
to lie down amid a tangle of arms,
two of which were your own:
then a hard pillow, then
a vessel. The act of not breathing
yet breathing in.

Then another night:
on the slope of your neck, his mouth,
this gesture of branding.
You turn to the sky and it is your lover’s
back, the stars like moles
waiting to be kissed.

Then speech as a calendar of other
times. Your voice softening
the air softened the day.
Then the week.
Then the months.

Sometimes you were found
retelling one night every night.
Until arms were nothing more
than arms. Framed by your window,
a view of a paneled darkness
and its nails sealing you in—

All the rest—what follows,
what becomes—now vaguely
referred to as worth
remembering.
Just as he is
before you. And you feel him
segueing into memory.
Then he is before you.
And you before him—

This morning, you could have sworn
he looked at you with so much love.
But turning to face him meant losing
his gaze into a coffee cup:
how his eyes contemplate an entire
universe out of a brown opacity.