I lay in our nest while you showered. Your window stretched outward though it was closed, with the greeting of the leaves and the afternoon light. I sunk into the fibers, into a puddle, watching the empty chair, the unplayed guitar resting against it, and the closet filled with the your clothes; but without your body in them it was like a haunt; just like the bed I lay in beneath the white sheet. I could not stand the sight of empty belongings. When you touch this or that, meeting the strings with a rough thumb, or tucking your hands beneath the pillow or over my fingers, and I grip you tight with my own, an armor of assurance tightens me, and keeps me warm. Sometimes it amazes me that I am alive and you are alive; separate. Later on, I pinched your tear between my fingertips, one of the many parts of you that come without haunts, unless you are not by my side. Then I am afraid that I may become an empty chair, an unattended guitar whose strings begin to loosen, or an unworn tshirt left to hang. As for empty beds, they are for phantoms to groom the lonesome cold.