When two people in a close relationship spend much of their time together, separation becomes obliteration.
ABSENCES
I switch on lamps as daylight fades,
draw blinds against approaching night.
Dogs start to bark, cats start to prowl.
As silence settles down like dust
the endless day begins to end.
Slow clock hands creep. Four walls encroach.
The ceiling, like a flower-press,
weighs on my shoulders, drains from me
my spirit, breath, my energy,
while in the mirror nothing lives.
I pour a drink, pick up a book,
sit in my chair opposite yours
but cannot concentrate to read
so close my eyes and try instead
to bear your absence like a wound
that I’m assured will surely mend.
Indeed it will, I know, for when
a week from now, with speeding heart,
I greet you from a landed plane
we will, of course, be reconciled.
Such temporary absences
provide a terrifying glimpse
of what bereavement must entail:
the agony of injured time;
the futile days that never end.
The ghosts that linger after death
are those the dead have left behind
who wander lost in empty rooms,
companions now with tears and dust:
the living that are not alive.
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