I awoke to the sun streaming in and birds calling.

Reaching to your side I find no trace of your warmth, no trace of your scent.

Not even a depression on the pillow to mark where your head lay.

What right has the sun to shine, the birds to sing, with you not beside me?

The first time I saw you in your grade school uniform, pigtails dangling, I couldn't resist giving them a yank.

Years later as we entered the frightening halls of high school I still couldn't resist and give your curls a timid caress.

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Quiet shy kisses after a dance that led to frantic fumblings in the dark.

Bringing embarrassed glimpses come day's light and knowing glances from our friends.

College fight songs that became wedding bells,

began a new life in a house where children could grow.

A cheerful wave, and your ever present smile as off to the corner store you go.

An over revved engine's roar, a squeal of brakes engaged too late.

A thud too gentle to sound the end of time.

I stare down at my angel, the eternal smile still on your face, your hair a golden Halo,

as the murderous red seeps up from below.

I would gladly be your Orpheus if I but knew how.

Now I move through the dim gray summer days, piled high in hollow platitudes and shallow sympathies.

Looking daily at the stone marked bed where their lying voices say you must lay, wondering only when we might lay together.

Is your bed truly any colder than mine?