No. 13.

Just because the door is open, doesn't mean I have to stay waiting in the room.

Ninety-nine.

If speaking
of things that I deserved:
More goodness
than
    that.

Ninety-eight. For M, on Christmas.

I wear the scarf
your mother gave me
this year.
It is bright blue
and doesn't match my eyes
but something about it
is comforting.
Why I am not going home
to you
I do not understand.

Ninety-seven. A true story that doesn't make for a very good poem.

I was too ill to go to into work
today. In the afternoon,
I drank a cup of coffee and painted
my eyelids cat-black,
and went to buy a new set
of sheets. Funny, how anxious
I made myself worrying
that I would see you in Central,
then at Park, then at the very end
of the green line, and then on the 87 home.
You were not there, of course.
I imagine you were in your fancy
downtown high rise, making charts
or preparing some sort of report or
presentation. I bet your hair was neat
and you looked very serious.
Maybe in your navy dress shirt.
Anyway, I made it home
without occurrence, and moved my bed
to the opposite side of the room,
a side you haven't slept on,
and found a pair of your pants
(brown corduroy), that were somehow left behind
when I gave you back your things.
I threw them away
and the sheets you haven't touched
are holding the mattress in place.

Ninety-six.

It has been seventeen days.
If my cat notices that you are gone,
she does not show it,
but she has taken to sleeping
on your side
of the bed.

I had coffee with a stranger.
It is too soon and he is too cynical,
and unlike you, does not know
how I shape my fingers
to hold a pencil, what colors
I will not wear, what things
make my voice
go soft.

I notice.
I'm sorry that we painted your bedroom
together. That must be hard to look at.
All I had to do was move around
some furniture.
I still love you.

I see my mother in the shape of my face
when I am drunk, when my makeup settles
into the creases underneath my eyes,
when I tire of being a good person,
or whatever this is.

Say I am able to cover my body
in chrysanthemums. Say that I am able
to forget you.

It's not about beauty or fluidity.
It is because of you
that I knew home,
once.

Ninety-five.

Since you left,
I have seen a great blue heron take flight
each day, from the window of the train.
I am still brave, but forgive me,
I could not have anticipated
this space.

Ninety-four.

I was always the one
to quickly grasp the concept of
permanency
and her opposite.

Tonight I will sleep
and tomorrow I will wake
and I will remember
that this has happened.

This has happened.