[January 2026, Issue 47] Love Lingers, Marie-Andree Auclair

My lips on a marble-cool forehead.
It was my first time.
I collected one last minute
with him alone, away
from coffee and conversations
that comfortably crowded his house.
I shut behind me the door
to the room where he lay.
It was not that I did not know him,
my grandfather. It was
that I did not know how to love
him into this absence.
I kissed his forehead
knowing
it would be the only time.