I wrote reams of poetry in college and into grad school, and not all of it sucked. I wrote a couple of poems this summer, but they’re not yet fit for public consumption. My brother recently reminded me of this poem, which was published in Line Zero in August 2011. I wrote it a few months before it was published.

Widowhood

Yesterday I went to see your mother.
I drove around the block twice
before I could park and go inside.
That summer when the sun was going down
we stripped the leaves off the rosemary
twigs and smelled our fragrant fingers.
I remember the sun slanting through the blinds
and the blue hum of your computer screen,
the place where the Christmas tree used to be.
Your mother made me a cup of tea
and I told her about the people and the things
I have packed into the places you used to be.
That morning the phone woke me up;
I was lying in my polka-dot sheets when they told me.
I remember that the night before
I had been rehearsing conversations with you,
knowing how your face would be, your voice,
when you were already dead. I went on campus
where the cherry trees were blooming, and the rain
had made their petals a pale mush
on the sidewalks. I waited a long time
before I read your letters, and they made me seasick
like the hammock, and the waves, and the car
we drove over the mountains, and the music.
When I left your mother’s house, it was dark
in the street, but over the hills the light was still bleeding
from the white sky and the dry grass
blew in the wind like wildfire
so I said your name and put my hand
on the cold glass of your window,
dark and still like the shade under the trees.

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