Because You Are Dead You Think You Can Have Anything You Want

Dannye Romine Powell

You come back,
bent over my things
like a collector, hunched,
touching, wanting to lay claim
to everything. No, not everything.
Only what I cleaved to after you died.
My Moon Book, its midnight cover
and parchment pages, its luminous drawings
steeped in liquid gold. Take the Limoges,
I say, The cut glass pitcher. Please,
not the Moon Book, its cloth corners
worn, its ghostly pages drenched
with longing. My Moon Book?
I repeat, hoping I’d heard wrong.
Yes, you say, your hand outstretched.