I’ve seen life leaving small things:

a tabby cat,

a red winged bird;

once I held a dog I loved

as breath grew shallow and rare.

But you, Camille, are a complicated thing.

I think of clocks, of coils and gears

and springs and hands;

I think of time and ticking

and how your fingers

were light, precise, and small.

This morning you lay veiled and absent.

I painted you a final time;

Camille, you fled

taking with you every hue.

What remains is as simple

as a broken bird,

as a clock run down.

What remains

are these dark and

flightless hours.