Epitaph

by Stephenson Muret

I stood beneath the post marked "art"
 
across three aisles
she browsed
ostensibly
 
I glanced up to her short orange hair
to that cool wash of her skyscape complexion
and
she glanced coyly down
in acceptance
 
I closened
I closened enough that to whisper
something
and I
nothing
said nothing
 
at the cashier
I could have stirred the pubescence of her nape I stood so near
with my breath I could have
but she slowed away
and I let her
 
and then exiting
she was there
suddenly
again
there
unexpectedly
re-entering the bookstore
     she whispered
     "excuse me"
                like a hoarsened sparrow

through that doorway our chests might have met
I might have lapped at the cool of her perfume
at her milkwhite neck
but
did not
  
instead
I made my way home
     dourly home
to draw out this brimful steaming bath
to slip into its singeing overwhelmingness
to drown myself in the cloying sweetness of her near absence
and to cut and to bleed our inky epitaph
              bleed it into velvet blackness