Katrina Kaye

I come back
the way ghosts do,

silent,

in the night,

when you are alone and can’t still
your mind.

Despite the passage of a thousand days
and the countries that grew between us,

I slip between sheets,

a million tiny insects over brown skin,

and hum Amazing Grace beside your ear
in a tempo too slow for you to recognize.

Did you know:

I never abandoned you
even if you couldn’t feel
my warmth pressed
to your side?

Your eyes may not have glimpsed me as 
I hid in the threads of last winter’s overcoat,

or while I merely sulked beside
you over morning coffee,
but surely the scent of peppermint
hinted that I was near.

I return
into the backdrop of your eyelids

silent,

in the night,

where death cannot keep
me from you.

“Returns” is previously published in Brickplight (2021).