There is a person on the beach, and their name is June or Jude or some other name beginning with a J. It’s on the tip of your tongue, lifting with the salty breeze and coating your lips with white streaks of salt; something still there but already gone. Just a dark outline against a bright grey sky and dark blue sea. Stormy.
From this distance, they could be a dog; animal grace descending into the sea, wet hair clinging to their shoulders like seaweed. There, there was someone once, not so long ago.
She’s looking for your body in other bodies, searching for your body within her body.
Pleasure is no replacement for the sound of your voice in the morning
You’re awake when she’s awake, you’re awake when she’s asleep, you’re still you when she becomes you.
And when she disposes of you in someone else’s body, she still finds bruises in the shape of your favourite words across her windpipe.
If only she could get hold of your skull: grab onto your skin: take hold of your face: wear it as a mask: see through the sockets of your eyes: press those globes flat between the pages of a heavy encyclopedia next to the petals that grandmother collected last spring.