Next to the lake

where I will

eventually drown,

I hear echoes

of what you said then

as if they were mine.

Phrases formed and

familiar enough

to resemble our kiss,

if there had been a kiss.

Something I wrote,

or said, returns softened

enough along the edges 

of the dark water’s 

crumbling definitions:

a twilight like memory

which slowly diminishes

into the night lingering 

only in the dim stars

reflected across the lake.

(April 7, 2023)