Her Absence
The beginning of a new life was the end of our beginning,
As I packed my feelings up and touched the cat’s broken tail
One last time — that fuzzy swift angle — goodbye, little cat,
Goodbye. All that mattered was that he wanted her back
And I wanted to take long baths with the shampoo she used,
In the house she had furnished.
I never knew there would be something left in her stomach
That could grow, something left over from months ago,
With her hands and his eyes, something so small you can only
Hear its heartbeat.
She was everything to him,
I was just a breath,
A transitional breath of time, a plug in a void, a voice
To fill the silence when all that was left were her earrings
On a white plastic tree and her hairbrush and her name on the letter box.
I was there, a ghost, among these things which didn’t recognize me -
The cat ran away at first. I was left painting my lips with my lipstick
In her mirror. And his body liked mine and how hard I worked to make
Those memories fade. But nothing can compete against those years, nothing
But perhaps a departure in dignity — I loved no one and hurt no one,
I was there, in this house full of her absence,
And I’ve left behind nothing of me.
