#397: Disappear

One day, the ones we love will disappear
and in the spaces where they used to be
an empty outline only we can see
will mark their absence. Time to time we'll hear

a voice almost like theirs, perhaps a phrase
they used to speak in laughter or in tears,
the cadence like an echo in our ears
of songs we sang before, in brighter days.

We're destined to be haunted in this way
or else to haunt the ones we leave behind;
That's how it is, and how it's always been.
We'll leave, and where we go no one can say,
these memories a perfume to remind
us all of blooms we cannot pluck again.
_