I lay my head

where you slept,

hoping to find

your scent

in the pillows,

or among the sheets.

But I found nothing

save the sweet memory

of knowing you lay there.

And in this confidence,

I found rest.

Even so,

as your scent

vanished

so quickly,

I pray

that these feelings,

these love-spectres,

that haunt me

may be exercised

from my forgone heart,

already given

to one whose presence

in my life

is not so transitory.

Yet perhaps the ghosts

that filled my heart

arose from something

that died

while she was away.