You could drop any part of speech

and still be understood.

A ghost-verb, each night I crept

to the dormitory’s end,

wedged myself between the ledge

and the old locker,

where no one could hear

your disappearing words but me.

Elliptical speech grew more clipped still,

till at last you gave the signal:

les coupures — les coupures —

the code for your departure,

a sure sign you’d be gone again –

and soon, the faceless dark

before me; the distant flare of streetlamps

branding the corner of my eye.