If I knew the answer

I hear Dion sing--Abraham, Martin, and John

and a shallow spell of tears flips me  

on my back.

Shallow because my soul is wrung 

out. The chill, the rain, the unmoving 

fog, the absence of life in the house, 

all the empty rooms, especially

this room, the master room, 

the sleeping room with the corner 

that stares me down, the corner

where he died, all this opens 

valves and the cruel truths

creep in to fill

the empty space with more 

emptiness, to split me

open like a honeydew.

He had a strong, true heart 

but no more power 

than a flower.

Write me a letter

The letters I find 

in the drawer. 

Simple words pink as peonies. 

I hold them to my cheek

Thank you for being my wife.

They hush me. 

Your letters. 

Your letters. 

Flesh

He is sick. His kidneys impede

him, worse, they poison him.

But still on warm afternoons he sits

on the porch looking out at the flesh

of olive trees, of humming birds and drifts

into the tenderness of our wind chimes.

He still is flesh. He has warm hands

that can hold things, an iced tea.

On his lap Esquire magazine. 

He is still flesh. Alert, thirsty,

he has hunger.

Body and soul sit on the porch, 

still alive,

still together. 

Again

Again, it's that night again.

He's breathing softly once again.

That mustard breath of earth 

around this room again, the water 

spilling from my eyes again, 

that start and stop and start

again, 

and here's the priest to say 

again, you and I are dying, too, 

my dear,

he is only dying faster.

I hear those words again.

I hear them now.

Back in the day

Those sweet mornings I wake up 

to everything or nearly that, 

close enough,

and know it's nearly everything, 

know it trembling, in gratitude, 

too modest by nature 

to ask for anything more, having had less, 

much less, 

I sit at the table at Al's, famous for 

big plates--

Denver omelettes with hash browns served 

on turkey platters--

facing him, my handsome newly-wed 

who reaches across the table and cups 

my hand in his two 

as if mine were a butterfly he captured, 

cupping it so carefully 

not wanting to harm it, 

and there are no words, 

having no room to form 

in our hyper-satisfied brains, 

we don't speak or move

until steaming platters set down 

and our hands return to our own bodies. 

Nobody here

He not only lived here 

inside this house, 

he was this house, 

in fact remains here even now

inside this house. 

When I enter, I enter him.

I feel the air move in all directions, 

I feel him fill the space like light 

when I flick the switch. 

He is not sad or angry 

though his body curled up

like burning paper, 

right here inside this house.  

That night I felt his soul pause 

and then slip into these walls 

as if into the folds of a thick drape.

He did not rush away from this 

weak animal life 

but when I speak to him

there's no answer--he cannot answer, 

how could he without tongue and throat?

The murmurs of wind through windows, 

through cracks in these walls, they soothe me, 

sometimes fool me but they are not him, 

he lives in a world of thoughts

and thoughts are soundless.

You might say such silence means 

nobody's here. 

But I feel him as I feel myself 

within and around 

this house