15 May Switzerland, In Memoriam, by Leah Pleasants
It’s silly, really,
how I cling, nails piercing palms,
to that postcard dream of Switzerland.
You said it once, just offhand,
that you’d love to wake up there one Christmas
to the hush of snow, in a silence too perfect to take for granted.
And each year I promise myself:
Go. Book a ticket. Get on the plane.
Step into the dream of what was always half yours.
But something stops me, keeps me here,
a tether to your memory too sharp to sever.
You would have hated this ache I’ve wrapped around us,
the way I keep you alive in a place never seen,
visiting Alps in daydreams,
not for the beauty of their peaks,
but because I know that’s where you rest,
laughing at me in an old, worn-out scarf,
as your breath clouds in the cold.
Now, I string lights in my small apartment,
fingers raw from the wiring just to watch them glow.
Maybe someday I’ll finally go.
I’ll stand on that mountain,
as if you’re just out of sight, celebrating—
this love, this life, this dream,
not lost among death, but resting,
waiting in the snow.