Nape

I could write you a poem

that begins here,

on the back of your neck-

bare as a winter branch,

a tender crescent of water

pulled by invisible moons.

It would say how love is a thing unseen

but close enough to touch;

how absence pools

in the hollows of bone.

It would say how I love you most

in the places you cannot see.

In the shadows that fold into your hairline,

the dip between vertebrae

where my fingers pause,

where the air waits

to name what we are.

When you turn

and the words dissolve,

I remember the way it feels

to lose you,

even though you are still here.