Stay Put

Stay Put

Stay put. Don’t go anywhere.
Don’t move your musculature
one iota, one picometer.

Can’t you hold still, exactly
as you are now, only frozen,
fixed this way so that

I can return to you and know
you, exactly as you were
when I stepped away.

Forbid your hair to grow.
Do not disturb the pleats
around your eyes.

Be like this photograph
of yourself. No flinching
as I watch you.

For god’s sake, get a hold of
your atoms, before someone
or something else does.