I’m talking to the dead.
Oh, look at the bunny,
I say to the empty kitchen.
I didn’t know I would be
the kind of woman
who talks to the dead,
who narrates the day,
who believes they hear me
after midnight when I whisper
I miss you.
I say I love you
as I walk in the spruce
and falling snow,
say isn’t it beautiful
into the crystalline air,
and the scene is more beautiful
for the sharing.
When I am alone,
I am always talking to the dead
about what it’s like to be here
in their absence.
How strangely wondrous
life can be after a loss.
I feel their presence
in the listening,
feel how the listening wraps
its tender arms around me,
feel how gently the listening
leans in to cradle my face
with silence.