My first city breath without you
brought drafts of soot and sharp pebbles. 
I remember how 
my throat burned
parched and bloody, 
how muddy my mouth turned, 
lips parting subway tracks, 
carving out a nest
and exhaling
a corner of your absence,
leaving a piece of it there.
I held my breath
the rest of the way back
to an apartment
constructed with our bones, 
now, a burial place. 

Healing 
resembles a sunrise 
through a sheet of clouds, 
between a skeleton of trees, 
over a city of robots, 
into a fourth-floor apartment window, 
onto floorboards greyed by phantom love, 
colorings its cheeks 
with warmth, a lovely memory, 
adjacent to resurrection.