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we kept the wake with candles trembling,
faces bent like reeds in the hush of the room,
our vigil a tide that pulled us deeper
into the hollow of your absence.

outside, a boat passed,
its wake unfurling like a wound across the river,
ripples widening, then closing again—
as if water could pretend
nothing had been torn through it.

and I tried to wake myself
from the dream of your leaving,
to rise from the heavy sleep
that grief lays on the chest.
but waking means daylight without you,
the cruel summons to stand in a world
that no longer holds your voice.

so the word circles me endlessly:
wake as vigil,
wake as wound,
wake as the rousing into loss.

and in all these meanings,
you remain—
the one we keep watch for,
the one whose passage troubles the waters,
the one whose absence shakes me awake
to the fragile, aching fact of love.

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