the jawline, the tears

looking at the picture
of him working, holding that instrument
i remember his face before my eyes
before his future became painfully obvious
and I ducked out
(it came true)
but none of that is relevant to this moment
to this memory

this memory is of his soul
his soul sleeping next to me
on an impossibly cold night
in the room of a stranger
and of him holding me
fingers alive, touching my arm like a neck
like the instrument I was in his hands