perhaps it was the cigarettes that did you in
or
perhaps the old age;
whatever the case,
the cancer was making itself a lovely home
while we were focused on
your budding dementia;
and then we had no time at all.
i can’t think of you
without also thinking of the end -
it hurts the worst of all hurts,
wind in the deadest trees
through the deadest years,
an exit wound
too small to complain about
too large to ever heal
and with that comes a desire for
(and you’ll forgive me)
a more sudden end to my days
and all
the
rest.
god, i wish i knew you better.
i can’t sit
on the couch
in the television room
with the labatt clock
that hasn’t worked for years
and the pictures of me
on the mantelpiece
above the fireplace
stuffed up with old newspaper
and the cathode ray monitor
perpetually on mute
without feeling like
i’m in your space.
your paperbacks haven’t moved from the tray.
your voice still holds vigil on the answering machine.
they tell me -
we would have gotten along famously
you with your scathing wit and i with mine
(apparently it’s where i get it from)
they also tell me -
i remind them of you
for the (s)words you gave me
for the way you tempered them
i am grateful.
but i am most grateful to you
for the “them”
and the “they”
in this poem.
i love them all,
and i love you,
but
i know you only by the bent spaces
around the hole you made when you left -
you speak to me only through loss.
