I didn’t know yet how to capture the right color of your hair—the gray swirl in front, the fading to brown in back. I hadn’t yet accepted the lines perpendicular to your mouth, to your eyebrows.

But, I did understand how the whole of you gets swallowed up. How we all get swallowed up. I understood how you could be with me and yet not. I needed your pores, the glisten of your eyelids. I wanted to capture your ghost—I wanted to learn your sinews and teeth.

I still do.