letter to a former lover

It has been a year, and I am daft
with memories that open
like a paper rose, with neither scent
nor flavor to them. I do have words,
but language has no instrument
to grant my tongue the taste of sweat,
of marshmallows in Finland, Madeira
sugared on your lips. I send you jewelry
and chocolate and no future, darling,
just the wistful and nostalgic wish
for the wheatfield of our common past,
where in rolling waves of idleness
the sun would illustrate your hair.
But if all I have of you are memories
I will consume them, a suicide with pills,
where there are never quite enough to still
the pain completely, but perhaps enough to kill.