FREE LOVE LETTERS

Love letter # 510

Time and separation make little difference. You are burnt into me. What looks like perfect skin to others is the mask of your presence – the burnished shell of your departure. I have been shaped by the hand of our union. I still keep the secrets you whispered, walk as though we remained in step. No one else notices. Some days, I notice nothing else.

There have been others since you. Perhaps there will be more. I have loved them. Some have loved me back. Yet, they have left only cracks. This is no criticism of them. It is simply that none have ventured into the spaces we occupied. We had a private tongue, with which we framed the world. In this language we always knew. That we were never alone. That when the rain fell there was ever shelter.

From the hilltop of absence, the view is cold and clear. I look across the interminable valley and there you are.

Should the earth heave, and distance crumple to a room, we will share the wine without shields, and no one will know how naked we are. And you will remind me, and I you. And this will be enough.