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Around the negative spaces

of your nose, ridge

             of your lips

I’ve marked regret.

Grain of your skin is coarse

with dour dismissal

of long, indentured days

              spent laying bricks

of someone else’s agenda

            and tabulating

            the tedium

of others’ commands.

Strange, the way your irises

deflect that everyday

displeasure

crinkled into grey green

smiles and stoic sighs

             of day to day

but now, eyes wide shut

flickering conceded dreams.

Sealed in by my own

heavy curtains of grief

            back dated, grim

            blocking out the light

I’m shamed by stale expulsion

of such secret despair

              and roll away

from your sleeping lament.