poems i've written since dan's been gone

the robe

winter is pressing in through the walls.
i can't find any of my clothes,
but i found your robe today
in the pile of laundry still unsorted
eight months after you washed it.
i'd forgotten it. how could i have,
after the thousands of times
i held you through it?
i put it on;
why is it so much less warm
from the other side?

out of control

it's almost two, and still i lay here
unable to sleep without you.

the windows are open on one of the last nights of summer,
and even in the city, the sounds and the air
are the same as when i was camping in the woods.
i was young, and we were far away from our homes,
in nature, whom we did not know,
we humans, suddenly no longer masters of the world.

where you are

you're in my thoughts, my day,
in my rising and the empty half of the bed.
you're in the silence on the phone,
in a smile i haven't seen for two years.
you're in a walk through the park,
feeding the geese stale bread.
you're in an empty chair beside me
at a café, a movie, and a play.
you're in friends we met together,
in the words you said to them,
at the checkout where they knew you by name
but never asked me where you went.
you're on the street,
you're on the train,
you're at the hospital and the church.
you're inescapable,
and standing still i can't find you.

the only place you're not
is in my arms.

-- 6/12/1998