LAST EVENING, AT SUPPER

who wondered who
sat in my place that moment
there among the passing
soup bowls
plates of prawns—

whose head was bowed for grace?

above the oaken board
the wine, the bread,
a waft of tarragon
married the onion’s pungency
in a half-lit phenomenon of
dread that I could not retrace

the hand lifting my spoon
looked like my grandma’s hand—
how did that happen?
when?
she is long gone

am I living her again?

companions became colored fog
and I heard nothing that was said
around the room
until—
napkins wiping mouths—

the noisy
pushing back of chairs
the rattling plates on plates
the crumbs
the broom
.
.
LAST EVENING, AT SUPPER

WITHOUT YOU, THE CAT

Without you, the cat
has lost his
piss and vinegar.
His alarm clock died.

Remember that old macho paw–
the velvet drumstick
he would play upon our cheeks
to be let out?
He doesn’t do it anymore.

Since you left
he hardly steps outside, he
stretches in the stale
hollow of your pillow, settles-in
to merely watch
the birds chase maple buds.

We watch them together,
the cat and I, we

try to figure how
to start the day without you.
The cat
just sleeps it off.
I write these letters
on the ceiling.
And the letters say please,
please come back

for the sake of the cat.

BEREFT

Some mornings I awaken with wet eyes;
tears precede my opening to the light.
I’m in a place I do not recognize
at first, my head still cowebbed by the night.

Deep shadows want to pull me back
to mindlessness, deep soft and gray.
I am an overwrought, limp gunnysack
too tired to lug into another day.

To have to re-imagine this old haunt
that was our world—to touch, to walk around
our furniture estranged—so desperately to want
yet lack the sense of being homeward bound:

these are the courages I must begin,
to live a story you’re no longer in.

.

BEREFT