The Visitor

Light fills the kitchen’s southern windows, illuminating a sea
of floating particles and the row of old, mud-caked shoes
in every size. The noisy family that lives here now
has a shiny, fat pot on the stove and the heavy
smells of another tribe’s meat and spices make me
scan the room a little faster, as if time is running out.
And it is. I shouldn’t be here. We don’t live
in this house anymore. But the counters are the same yellow
counters and there is the peacock blue crescent stain
my glass left after the cheap coasters bled.
Or were you already gone by then? Look! The green and black
linoleum your mother recognized from the fifties. Haunted, I slowly
pace, letting my hand run over the smooth, white cabinets
we tried to close quietly each morning, hoping
the other might be able to sleep a little longer, yet
no matter how we tried, they made a loud, woody pop
as they fit back into place. And there is the door
you put your right side through
because I’d just closed it—notice how the top panel’s stain
doesn’t match. And there you are, chopping fast, showing
the proper way to hold a shallot so fingers are safe.
Your black Japanese robe opening
as you prepare tilapia in white wine and caper sauce
that first night. Your green and gold Moroccan tea glasses.
Our placemats stacked with books.
Keys next to your napkin.
How can there be nothing left of us?
Not a nail in the wall? There, in the corner,
how tightly we hold each other the night
you last make me rice with cardamon and rose water—we hold on
as if each other’s body contains the thing we need most.
As if love that fierce will protect us from failing.
As if forgiveness can be wrung
from the beloved’s flesh, salty kisses and 2,705 days of longing.

the veracity of rumor

(formerly titled September 20, 2008)

in progress after new reports from home

Reasons

The ripe, abandoned
garden with its weary, ravaged faces—
its sunflowers stand tall, waiting
to be touched and eaten. Rickety
shadows of houses built one
hundred years ago sink
just a bit, at odds with the sidewalk,
the street, the very tilt of the planet.
A soldier in his stiff, medaled
suit walks quickly in the late
sun, his suitcase ticking like a metronome.
Kids skateboard bare-chested, flying
upside down, skinny angels
surfing concrete waves. The torture
victim’s gentle voice and broken
English when the interviewer asks
for a description of the cable that beats
him to this day. Chivas, isn’t this enough?

Death Without Song

With death—flowers, cards and people arrive.
Platters of food and wet eyes puncture
your aloneness. The people you know can barely
stand to look at you
but they do, and they say something about loss,
or try to, or tell you they know there’s nothing
they can say to comfort you, and that alone—
because it’s true—comforts
like bitter medicine. Admitting
the always stunning impotence of words
exposes the fact that you’re living
your worst nightmare and a noisy house
only delays the torture of silence
after years of hearing her voice fill these rooms.
The announcements, obituary, wake and funeral delay
the onset of what feels like your own death.

With divorce—nothing and no one arrives.
Not even her mail. The house is emptied of her
belongings. You sweep her long hair off the bathroom floor
for a last time. For the first time
you notice the clock ticking. Couples
everywhere when dining alone. People
don’t try to say anything about loss
when you tell them the news they’ve already heard.
Several seconds—perhaps two or three of the longest seconds
you’ve experienced in an even longer time—elapse
before they say something brief, usually two or three of the shortest
words you’ve experienced since the last time you told
the news that’s already known. News that travels
without announcement or newspaper clipping.
I’m so sorry, they mumble before suggesting
lunch sometime.