Beloved,

I remember that last night on the threshing floor. I was sifted there, beaten, winnowed -- chaff filling the wind, a swirl of lambent golden husks as empty as my dreams of the future. You reached down and picked me up, gathered every nerve and fiber 'til your hands were full of me, and put every cell back in its place. As soon as I could, as soon as brain and muscle were connected, I ran from you. You had seen too much.

Now I stand here, our love the dust that drifts about my feet, shimmering as it catches photons in the air. All of our once-possible lives rushing through me, the future collapsing to this dark, solitary singularity: me without you.