harbinger

i had a collection of photos
of just your hair
out of focus, 
caught in every frame.
each image held at its edge
a single curl,
a blur of your human detail.  
both entering and exiting
some view we'd somewhere shared
and abandoned.
looking back through this
faithful archive now
i see these fragments
of you differently.
the particle observed.
i see a trail of breadcrumbs 
i couldn't,
or wouldn't,
follow back then. 
and now too an eerie draft
of what time would feel like 
after you left.
your coming
and goings,
thoughts of you
crossing the periphery 
of my afternoons,
smudging the perimeter of my days,
crackling at the corners of my mind.
i don't miss you any less
than i did when we were together,
just differently.