One word only

Pip called out at the turn
and was gone

We hunted through vines and
the leaves of books for her
snouting her spurned bag for clues
caves were fingered, boxes opened

Once, I thought I saw her shadow
on the underside of a cloud
like god in a projector’s beam

Her laugh held me poised in a dream
through the window some night on a
zephyr, and when I woke late,
the sun already over a prescribed arc,
my clothes were salty
rimed and damp
she sharped me one word
inside my cheek with
a fingernail, and
it haunts me