Empty Studio
My memories
are footsteps
leading me to you.
I smell your scent of wood,
your sweat with the bouquet of bronze,
remember the finger you sacrificed
to impetuosity and art.
Finally the world fed all of you to the blade––
our severance as final as one of your straight sure cuts––
making you into memory I follow one step at a time,
my passing visible through stone dust
and wood shavings on the floor.
This is how you and I
create patterns
even after you are gone
from memories as fragmented
as what you left behind
when you created art––
stone chips, sawdust, pebbled glass,
curls of metal and winged shards of paper––
my footprints
pushing them farther apart
each time I pass through.
Leaving more of me
and less of you.


