ghost ship

I’m so sorry I couldn’t
spell out every lock of black hair

couldn’t make the words dance on the wind.

the scent of melons is washed away by the river, and
all I can smell is spicy apple cider from lunchtime--
you never left any footsteps on the banks.
Even your orange scarf, the one with white dots, is
missing from its usual spot

where are you?
where are you?
where are you?

I’m stumbling
and my hands are grasping for nothing
and I feel like I’m choking--

at the marina, all I can see is lavender

fog and the silhouetted hull of a sunken ghost ship

(Poetry Friday Roundup here.)