I have carried your absence
longer than your presence—
your laughter once rippled across me,
your shadow bent in my tide.
Now I mourn in silence,
my waters thick with silted memory,
each wave a knell,
each eddy a sigh.
But grief is never still.
It shifts, it churns,
and in the turning
I find a darker music.
I imagine the dance
upon your grave,
feet stamping where roots entwine,
a rhythm not of cruelty
but of release—
the body’s last rebellion
against the weight of stone.
I am the Thames:
I cradle both dirge and revel,
I keep your secrets in my depths,
yet on my surface
I shimmer with the laughter
of those who dare to live
after loss.
So let me be both mourner
and musician,
the tide that keens,
the tide that waltzes—
for love, once drowned,
still rises in the current,
still dances in the wake.
.