Poetry
A sound of you
spectres itself
in the walls of this house
something like a sigh
something like a breath
I strain my ears
to hear it again,
trying to shush
my rushing blood
like a librarian disturbed
and hear you again
beyond me.
I keep running
into all these concerned people
in supermarkets
and pharmacies,
our friends, your cousin,
classmates, coworkers,
acquaintances,
and they knit their eyebrows
and they hum sympathetic
and they keep asking me
how I am coping
without you.
I smile
I tell them
thank you, but
I am okay
I am okay
I am okay
and tear my tongue
on my teeth
every time I say it.
Three days after you moved out,
I found a jar in the freezer
labeled in black sharpie with
OPEN ONLY IN CASE OF EMERGENCY
and I’m not sure what it contains
or how long it has been there.
The glass is frosted over
and the lid is frozen shut
and it is not an emergency
right now
but I want to take that jar out
and crack it open in the sink
and find out what
you felt was so important
it needed to be buried
in the shivering cold
behind the peas and the popsicles.
Every so often,
when I cannot sleep
and I am thinking of you
I go downstairs to the kitchen
and open the freezer door,
stand with the cold fog billowing out
and I look at the jar you left for me,
wondering what emergency
could be greater than
finding myself without you.
This is the first night
I am lying in the dark
without you.
The room does not breathe.
It does not stir, it does not
cough nor sniff, it does not
roll over and seek my hand
in the middle of the night.
It does not wander in the night.
It does not wander under the sheets
and over naked flesh that yearns
for your touch, it does not
wake to dawn knocking at the window
and say hello good morning
I can’t wait to start the day with you.
Your sorrows must not
be shuffled off to dust over
in closets and drawers.
Pull them out.
Make the world know them.
Scrawl love letters to your wounds
on the sides of skyscrapers,
so the whole city must stare at them,
so the mayor and the aldermen
and the meter maids must stare at them.
Stamp your feet so hard the subways rattle,
scream so loud the windows rattle,
tear out so much of your hair
the birds in the park will never want
for nesting.
Grief yourself hollow
but make sure they remember why.