Neuroma

Where
there were words, once.
each right syllable grown
into a song heap, now just
a lighter square on concrete
where, flood-soaked, the jeweled ink 
ran that day

   an amputated decade

the mind assumes
all is still there
where you left it
no vacancy, no
absence, just
muscle memory from
an implacable cortex

   do not permit
   broken parts to forget
   wholeness.

Looking for familiar symbols
in invisible ink. Writing
again with the off hand.

Yes, even now
my heart still 
skips like adrenaline stones 
each time I'm thrown across 
her wake
each unanswered chip of water
asking
where 
it all went.