Love Every Drop

There should be more ceremony
before, not after, especially
with your kind of death,
a tortuous withdrawing
your now snail-like brain
creeping into its thin shell.

I try to create a rite
from snapshots,
here you are, thumbing your nose
at life’s power to beguile you,
forsaking all you once were
those laughing, dancing fools.

I yearn to conjure them back
but this room is solid dust,
abandoned good intentions.
Your elbows, always everywhere,
nudge you now,
out, not in.

A ritual of so nearlys,
an inch from the safety net,
an ounce more self-belief
and you’d have had fanfare.

Perhaps I didn’t miss
you marking your card
each of our mirrored sips
your little liquid goodbyes.