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Posts Tagged ‘missing’

Calendaring

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 5, 2025| 4 Comments »

since I last held you
I measure the days 
in fallen leaves—
great brown mounds
beneath empty branches

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After a Morning of Crossing Things from a List

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on August 13, 2025| 12 Comments »

Then comes the moment
when not one thing is more important
than walking to the river
and finding a wide rock in the middle
of the flow where I can sit
and speak to you.
There’s not much to say
these days besides I love you,
I miss you. So I say the paltry words,
six inadequate syllables.
As always they are sorry translations
for the infinite songs of my heart.
So I sit on the rock and listen;
silence the language you speak now.
I’ve been learning its tender
conjugations—you were. You are.
You have been. You will have been.
Is it true they all sound the same?
I practice silence long enough
the river moves through me
touching all I cannot say.
I don’t know how I know
when it is time to rise.
The silence holds me.
I teach the silence your name.

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When I say, I miss you

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on June 24, 2025| 2 Comments »


 
 
I mean there’s a silence
here where your voice should be,
an emptiness beside me
where your warmth is not.
I mean your cereal bowl
is not in the sink.
No scent of lavender candles
burning in your room.
I might say, I miss you,
but it’s code
for I miss who I am
when you are here.
Miss giggling until we fall
on the floor. Miss
the way my fingers
pull through your hair.
Miss holding your feet
while you sit in a chair—
that strange thing
that only we do.
I say, I miss you,
but I mean I miss
you humming the Eagles
while making chia seed pudding.
I miss the here of your hand
in my hand. I miss the here
of your feet on the floor,
I miss the here of your eyes.
The here of your sneeze.
The here, right here, of your sigh.
 

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After Not Seeing Her for a Year

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on March 27, 2025| 2 Comments »


for Deb
 
 
I held the tall and solid
song of her in my arms,
held her the way
a note clings to a staff,
as if for a moment,
I could anchor myself
to the years of shared
laughter. I miss you,
I said. And she said,
That is how it is.
What a gift, these five words.
They did not try to fix,
nor did they ignore
the ache of missing.
As if she were helping me
rekey my thoughts into bitonality—
a melody written in love
with a harmony written
in ache. For a while longer
then, I held her because
I could. And moments
later I rehearsed again
how to let her go.
No part of it
was not beautiful.

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Since You’re Gone

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 26, 2025| 6 Comments »


 
 
My heart is like a well-used couch,
the kind with a dent where your body
once curled in, the cushions threadbare
from years of use; the kind of couch
that remembers every time you gave
it your weight, that recalls every story
that spilled from your mouth,
your words now woven into its upholstery.
Since you’re gone, the picture of me looks
like less like a picture of me and more
like a picture of where you used to be.  

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One Missing You

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on June 6, 2023| 2 Comments »

 
in the chamber of the heart
lighting a golden candle
offering you a chair

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City Market, 10 p.m.

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on March 5, 2023| 12 Comments »




Once again I’m weeping in the produce.
This time it’s the cauliflower that does it,
remembering how you and I were the only ones
who loved it. I’m thinking now of curried
cauliflower soup and how I no longer make it.
Thinking of all those nights we squeezed the lemon
into the bowls, made a yogurt swirl on top.
And next thing I know, I’m crying in the cracker aisle
because I’m not buying saltine crackers.
I hate saltine crackers. But you loved them.
You loved them and, oh, sweet boy,
I still love you and I want to put the damn box
in the cart, as if I could bring them home to you.
I don’t mind it, this ache, I don’t mind them,
these tears. Of course, it hurts to miss you.
Is it any wonder I shop at ten o’clock at night,
these empty aisles, these tears spilling down my face
as I walk past the cans of black bean soup,
the flats of fresh blackberries, so ripe, so sweet.

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After the Loss

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 1, 2023| 14 Comments »




I don’t think of all the lines from letters
I will never learn by heart,
those letters that you never wrote
about those days you didn’t live—
those mornings you didn’t wake to snow,
those friends you didn’t bring back home,
those tangy foods served in countries
where you will never go.
Is it strange to miss what never was?
I wouldn’t know.
I’m not thinking of them now,
all those letters that you never wrote.

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Grateful for Those Years

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 4, 2022| 13 Comments »




Tonight it’s his willowy body I miss,
the way it fit so easily into my arms,
the way he’d find me on the couch
and slip in beside me and loan me
for a time the full weight of his loneliness.
I miss how sometimes we’d say nothing
and let the quiet crests of our breath
be the only thing that need be said.
I miss how sometimes we’d talk for hours,
our thoughts unspooling like ink-dark yarn.
I miss nuzzling my face in his hair.
I miss being with him everywhere—
in the kitchen, in the car, in the yard,
on a plane, in town, on the pond,
in the store, by his desk. But most of all,
tonight, I miss him in my arms,
here in my too empty arms,
this place where so many years I held him,
this place where the memory of his beauty
still leans full weight against my chest.

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One Attempt

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 3, 2022| 4 Comments »



 
 
like trying to contain the sky
in the word blue—
saying I miss you

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