to helen, hell of a scotswoman, mother of three, formidable intellect, smoker; whose graceful exit from this world left a gaping hole where her love should have been

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.

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