they say “you can never truly die.”
I kept waiting for the right memory
of him to carve into a page.
I searched for it in his sweet messes
of words he’d heard in 1950’s love songs,
the ones that played the day his dad left.
I listened for it in his whispers of nothing
placed gently into my ear
each morning, after handing me raw
honey on burnt toast. 

I took pen to paper,
turned him from a wasp
into a honeybee,
from black French roast
into chocolate milk,
but love doesn’t soften a stinger
or sweeten a taste
that’s bitter.  

I write “I love you” on the rear car
of a train and watch the words
become tiny, dimming fireflies
stop at the high horizon.

Gabrielle Sorge dreams of a world in which she could love off of baguettes and olives. When she's not writing poems or drinking copious amounts of coffee, Gabrielle is most likely listening to R&B from the 90's and early 2000's.

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