I drag like jetsam down to the dam where
we would watch the world unfurl, an amber
ribbon parting the malachite water

from the sapphire sky, and I wait for you
like a stone. I stay as magnolias
mock me with morning aroma, but they

cannot mask the lack of your musk. I pause
awhile with gawking magpies, their gloating
cries signal night is plunging into day.

I scrounge in burgeoning light between grey
mangrove branches for any sign of you –
the smooth rocks you would skip or the ring

you buried. I linger as black orb spiders
tangle in their gossamer strings and I
grieve with their star-crossed game. And as dawn breaks

so do I. The magnolias stand guard
and the magpies sing dirges as I grip
your stones and sink them in the dam where you drowned.

**Originally published in Long Glances