Death Dreams

i had a dream where you died,
you said it was over but in the entirely literal sense
physically, it was over
you were gone; memory a whisper, your name riding on the wind
i had never
faced something so permanent
yet so momentary,
like being caught in a state of undress,
an image that only lingers because the image is hard to forget;
and it is just as inappropriate to say
i cant get the image of your tits in that
little black bra out of my head
as it is to tell the world
i don’t want to forget but
if his presence is now a ghost that looms over me, dictates all i do,
then what other choices do i have?
what remains is not necessarily a scar,
nor any other form of permanence
something more like a hiroshima shadow,
the simple implication that something
was there
and now simply isnt
or a grave where a body still remains
though the person is no more
and what about a body?
earth, once flesh, now earth;
and this once was what is was but now it is not
 as though it all turned to ashes, poured down the kitchen sink;
and we simply pretended it didn’t happen at all
something in another life
another part of ourselves, in the scheme of life, only a flashing glimpse passing thru the window of a fast train
a momentary beauty not built to last, crumbling in your hands,
an image broken by a ripple, something starved into madness, the second before a supernova
and in the soft gore of it all,
i could tell my children at least that
i once knew something beautiful