Post Mortem (Poetry)

I have pulled my love apart to see
what made it live -
what made it die -
do a stock take of its bones,
measure how it grew
and then outgrew the skin of me.

Blood has dried to stains -
brown memories of what was warm
and the heart is a lost glove -
one of a pair worn for a summer
when love was an accessory
and the label mattered.

Who he was and where he is now
seems almost of no consequence.
The little death I suffered is all done -
a plague survived - its shadow spread
clinically on a cool but soothing slab
and examined to be sure its breath is gone.