In Our Laboratory

as you’ve turned to go home

we will burn standing once

too close to the scope

your hand as if still

cupped beneath

my collar bone

to catch the beat

with seismographs

or so you’d thought

for whatever ears

feigned not to hear

too faint a pulse

standing ever

so near... louder

and it’s all too clear

our radiographs

will last reveal

whomsoever

the eyes 

would try

to conceal

in the 

not so 

distant 

future 

of the

Hubble

from which 

you evaluate

me back...

as a shrink

in a petri dish

blue and green

like your favorite

aging cheese...

with microscopic

semitransparency waiting

to return someday the

stethoscopic favor

around your neck... 

to the death my friend

or for whenever

we’ll need it

again...

#missingsomeone #challenge