Your loss was a breath
that could not be put back, 
an arrow shot into the heart of the sun. 

Your presence became an echo 
fading into the dark corners of night, 
lost between the heat rising off the pavement. 

When I awake alone at night, 
the desperate silence condemns me; 
“You didn’t do enough.” 

There are no paths in this world 
that lead to you any longer. 
That thought cuts 

down to the separation of bone and soul. 
Sometimes I wonder if I ran fast enough, 
if I could catch a glimpse of you, 

fading into starlight and red shift, 
a chance to see you laugh one last time, 
the colonnade of a heart that no longer knows reason.