apophenia

i. calculus

to chart affection in units of distance with shoulders six centimetres foreign on the 8:14. conversion of heat into hypothesis – my hand static on the steel bar, yours twitching at the edge of yes. you say silence is just sound with all its clothes on. you say love is not a graph but a gradient. i say nothing because proof eludes me.

ii. mnemonic

seven ways you lock.
one: polaroid in negative
two: scent of bergamot in wet wool
three: scarf curled in throatlike architecture
four: abandoned comma in your goodbye
five: hands fluttering between your favourite constellation
six: shùn blowing against coronado like ash
seven: bruise-blue of your eyes

iii. apophenia

once, i mistake rust-gold for lipstick on the corner of my mug & sea-black sky for apology & shredded song where you aren't moving through the city like a widow. still, i find your shape in the ash patterns of bus tickets or the hollow between radio stations.

iv. palaeontology

at the back of my drawer a receipt from the café i swear i'd never return to. how my last text – untainted virgin – shimmers in radioactivity. how nine months of carbon-dating & one halting syllable later, i am left digging you out with bare hands & fingernails choked with flint.

v. deduction

if love is a theorem then grief is fermat's favourite toy. etched into the chalkboard long after class is ended, the lecturer gone & the room echoing still with the sound of nothing.

on the flight back
she is a city
blurred under cloud
as stars fall into the aisle
like torches.
i remember her name
& coordinates
RA 06h 45m 08.9s | Dec –16° 42′ 58″
i think about visiting someday.