You Never Autumned

By Samuel McConochie

Your hand once held still leaves a wait.

Wrist-warmth we forget to name.

You laughed into me once.

I still wear your sounds on bad days.

Not everything—what’s meant to stay?

A drifter in those sands we sifted.

Now firm soil, patted, planted—

Quiet, where memories grow.

Silence isn’t absence, you said.

Just a place where care can go.

So I heard you once again—

To a place you never autumned.

By Samuel McConochie