Novel

Dog-eared and dismissed.
Well-kept, but not well-read;
unremembered, but not forgotten.
I found you today.

A finger lain for a brief moment
on your spine before you
are drawn out of your tiny territory,
opening to that imperative page...

The site of our previous parting
renders grief of an ending written,
yet not perceived by this
reluctant reader.

Shall we begin again?
Or will I only lose my place once more,
your story a bewildering mystery...
as is your touch?

I inhale that which I will
never taste and never feel.
Scents or sense, it matters not.
Nothing can reach me here.

Only the familiar flavor
of loss that I cannot justly
claim clings to that which I will never lose...
regret in the face of my resolute reality.

I set you down for but a moment
and once again, you are gone...
finishing your story in places where
I am but a minor character.

That which we shared is in
the prose of the past and your pages
are turned by another’s hand.
And it is clear that we are done.

Done.....
but never finished.