Short List

when you go
i will take away with me
the following items:

1. the nights on which i'd kept you up
   
   
   1. refusing to let you close your eyes for even the slimmest scintilla of a second
      
      1. because i wanted you with me
         
      2. all of you
         
      3. all the time
         
      4. if only for that seemingly infinite moment
         
      5. that stretched and wrapped itself around the small finite universe
         
      6. only we two occupied
      
      
      
   2. when my blind fingertips beheld you
      
      1. remembered and recognized you
         
      2. more than my unseeing eyes did
         
      3. remembering my remembering you
         
      4. everything else was immaterial
         
      5. to the feel of you
      
      
      
   3. and i breathed you in
      
      1. one part oxygen and five parts you
         
      2. so i could submerse and had willing drowned
         
      3. in you
         
      4. carefully lining the center of this
         
      5. our infinite moment
         
      6. in our finite universe
         
      7. with the delicate fichu of your honey-scent
         
      8. within Mnemosyne's transient walls
         
      9. for as long as it would be possible
      
      
      
   4. because, really, all i wanted was to kiss you
      
      1. which was to learn the feel and texture of you
         
      2. and lock all that knowledge up
         
      3. in Mnemosyne's frangible boudoir
   
   
   
2. the scant hours and minutes and seconds of days you offered
   
   
   1. when i was allowed to have you all to myself
      
      1. in the front-seat of the car
         
      2. when you reached your hand for mine
         
      3. and i learned the sign language
         
      4. exclusive (i hope) only to us
         
      5. be marked by the graze and imprint of your lips
         
      6. on my fingers and palms
         
      7. more kisses i'd held in these two hands
         
      8. than my ten fingers can count
      
      
      
   2. skimmed off surreptitiously in the company of others
      
      1. in the back-seat of the car
         
      2. in the dark
         
      3. or hidden from view in daylight
         
      4. shoulder-to-shoulder - or shoulder on shoulder -
         
      5. joined at the arms
         
      6. sometimes the hands
         
      7. oh so silently
      
      
      
   3. i brushed past you
      
      1. bumping shoulders
         
      2. glancing arms
         
      3. by accident
         
      4. only occasionally
   
   
   
3. the marks you'd left
   
   
   1. all over seen on me
      
      1. all too few
         
      2. unfortunately
      
      
      
   2. unseen in me
      
      1. all over
         
      2. so completely
         
      3. oh so fortunately
         
      4. for me