There's a whisper, a tender touch, a memory of a presence,
where flesh no longer meets bone,
yet the phantom lingers.
You'd think the absence shrinks, but its shadow looms,
larger in its invisibility,
casting presence from absence itself.
I rub my fingers along the outline
of something I can no longer grasp,
feeling the pulse of an echo.
"Remember when you held my hand?" it asks.
"I still do," I whisper,
tracing the air with absent fingertips.