In each photograph I see
what captured me
when I first looked at you
and saw
time stopped:
I nearly died.

Since when,
I'm echo to myself.
When you're away
each day's the same
as yesterday:
tomorrow is the blank page
in a diary, never touched;

without you
all music
would be late quartets and blues:
there'd be no news
to fuel poems:
paintings would hang down
their heads in shame.

Without you
I'd live with just one heart
and without art:
elegies would speak
of nothing else,
the birds would sing
and I would not.