Pictures of You

You in a fever dream, sweaty, gloss-pooled to the bed like a face fighting past plastic bag. Something freeze-dried.

You marching down the stairs in my boots and hardly anything else, wearing a cowboy hat you stole from the resale shop that one time, me wondering how in the hell one successfully steals a cowboy hat.

You in a dollar store Halloween costume augmented by my makeup job that left you looking like Frank-N-Furter after he got out of the pool at the end of the movie, before Riff killed him.

You holding a camera to my face, the resolution good enough that you can see the reflection of my camera in the lens, a hinted whisper of me off to the side.

You afloat in the pool with all your clothes on, unbuttoned shirt set stiff above the water, a struggling jellyfish below, shirt tails wishing and washing in the mini undertow.

You blocking the camera with your hand, unsmiling, in a way where you can imagine my come-on laughter, my protestations or prostrations, whichever came first in the end.

You in the crack of the bathroom door, trying not to smile and doing it, caught in mid-get out, when you used to laugh at these things, these towering simplethings.

You in the bed again, not feverish but cold, you can almost see your breath rising from you, the only way of describing you here being sarcophagal.

And the last one, when you were gone but your impression remained, mountains and valleys of bed that Lilliputians could explore, wondering where to settle down but having no idea where to start.