detach

weird little things
going away
today, I cancelled the p.o. box I have had for ten years
the one that still gets mail for you
sometimes.
They won't be forwarded
the catalogs and advertisements
mailed to you
I realize
as I hesitate to click -
I won't see your name
inside a pile of mail again


outside the post office
was where I first recognized you
in an unfamiliar place
all those years ago
when we first met
knowing it was you
from the back
from your shape,
from how you walked and held yourself.


This morning, I continued to clean out
dumping old spices you'd kept
dumping old packages of things
we wouldn't eat even if you were here to make them.


One more clean out of the closet
I discard and take back the dress I wore
to your funeral
(a word, three and a half years out, I still cannot bring myself to say out loud)
the dress my mother chose.
I won't ever wear it again, but I am not ready to let it go.


In one bottom dresser drawer
I find your old wool pants
willing myself to put them in the pile
of things that need to go.
I don't associate them with you anyway.

I check the pockets just in case.
Just in case.
Inside, one poop bag, stuffed in your pocket
for a winter snowy dog walk.
And I stand there,
crumpled pants in my hands
trying not to cry
sifting through my mind to find an image of you
of us
late at night
your brown scarf looped stylishly around your neck
your hands stuffed in the pockets of these green pants
as you walk backwards, skipping



.

accomplishments

.

I have kicked butt these last weeks.

Not easy, in fact quite a lot of painful
on the floor, knocked down again type things.
but I have been released from some energy drains
have let go of things that only brought frustration
or more pain.
It's weird to not have bees on the to-do list
the habitual thought of needing to get over there
replaced quickly with relief at no-I-don't.
 

          the sadness at digging up the garden
          is replaced by renewed irritation
          and such readiness to be done
          thank you fall woodchuck for reminding me
          by eating every last green thing
          that had recovered from your previous assault
  
          another carload of things to goodwill
          including all the business forms and
          professional checkbook ledgers
          (the pages with your handwriting removed before the rest went in the box)
          your old reel fishing poles, not used in many years
          because fly fishing had become your favorite
         
          clearing out the chest freezer
          I stood at the sink
          sobbing
          holding on to the counter
          while hot water rinsed away the contents
          of the last ice cream we bought together
          a heart left in stark relief while the rest of it melted away

          I have done good work, clearing out this place.
         
         
.

by date

sometimes
as we read the paper
you would point out obituaries
of elderly couples who had died
within tight orbit of each other.
I would nod my head
and say - makes sense to me.
of course they do.


We will not be one of those couples
neither elderly, nor dead within close range.


I was not one of those people who wondered
if I would survive
I knew
with resentful certainty
that I would live.
though I kept waiting


Buying half and half for my tea
I would glance at the expiration date on the carton
saying half out-loud
"I will be dead by then."
Every time
Every time
Every week, buying again,
saying I will be dead by then.



Sometime over the last several months, I have stopped saying this
Have stopped thinking it.
I reach into the stacks
see the date
and think -
pretty unlikely I'll be dead by then.
It is not a relief,
just acknowledgment.


Now, how I can be fine, in the hours before the last calendar date
Fine, even relieved,
until it sneaks up behind me
clobbering
smashing parts of this body, this me,
veins opened I have not seen or felt
flashing scenes of the soon after
slamming me back to the day
bruised and screaming
that I do not want to do this anymore


the place of retching will pass, I know
it does
The day itself was beautiful, this week
intense
and beautiful
but this is not that day.

the kettle is boiling
tea needs to be made
the date on the cream
just is.


.

by day

three years have passed
on this day
At the time,
I will be at church
without you
not bursting into flames
as you often joked I would.

I will always have this day to myself
No one else knows to count the weeks
like this

Like this,
I will have you to myself

I will have that day,
the way it was
Just the two of us, and Bo.

On the date,
everyone else can remember.
Everyone else can rush and claim their part of you,
claim their part of me.
On the date,
they can send their text messages,
or find they have forgotten to.

But on the day
on the day today, my love,
it will be you and me
as it was.
As it was on that day
three years ago today.

I miss you my love.
So so much
I miss you.
I hope you are alright.


.

donation

.

I rang the doorbell
as requested
for your assistance with my donation

I am going back to the car to get more bags
you do not need to yell at me to stop
you do not need to yell
that this better be something you can sell

Do you treat everyone this way?
Even as I bring you more
you keep yelling.
Even after I am crying
and ask you to please stop giving me
a hard time right now

I understand that people often leave you trash.

Do you know what is in these bags?

My husband's shoes.

The shawl I wore to his funeral
Four days after he drowned.

I do not think you need to yell at me
today.


.

I woke up this morning arguing with the imaginary person I often argue with who suggests I am dormant, like a winter bulb. Imaginary botanical analogies must be corrected.

*************************

There is a difference
between dormancy and death.
A tulip is prepared.
A field of daffodils in snow
knows winter is just that.

I am an orchard of fruit trees
clear-cut in mid July,
the ground heavily salted beneath me.

Not all green things grow back.


*****************************

anniversary eve

We "courted" for so long; three months of crossword puzzles, books read together and discussed over tea, messages left for the other in newspaper articles and margins.  

In those first few months of courting, he would leave his paper for me to find, saving half the crossword for me, wishing me a good day in the margins. I left him messages by underlining random words in an article to make a poem or a song. We had just talked about that - the messages we left for each other - a few weeks before he drowned. He told me "I still leave you some every once in awhile, but I don't know that you find them." We probably both missed so many hidden notes.

For our anniversary, my love, I have left you a message (though not terribly romantic), underlined in the NYT. Hope you find it.

It is obvious
very much apparent
painful on all sides
Death
is so exhaustive
like climbing Mt. Everest
No less confounding,
still surprising.

this was an accident.
was not supposed to have been.
In her grievance,
she cannot align herself

I'm sorry these two
could not speak
the story
from start to finish

Happenstance
catastrophe

Our privacy is successful
intimate
inescapable

How I wish this
whole ride
was done.

sorry 'bout the language.

today, I feel like a mussel shell
raised up and smashed down
raised up and smashed down.
Fucking seagull. Just eat me already.