Nothing Is Ever the Same
Nothing is ever the same:
Not the brrringing of the telephone
When you record the message
Not the favorite restaurant
Where every table
Is fixed with two chairs
Not the bed,
One side, not mine: hers,
Now winterized forever.
Nothing is ever the same:
Not the coffee, not the tea
Grounds staled, leaves foretold
Not the car
Keys just dangle, hooked
Fast like a mouse in owl eyes
Not the vase of iris
Its water run low,
Blue-purple tongues taking bows
In a finger's drift of pollen.
Nothing is ever the same
Or was the same
After you left:
After you left
Dust on your collections
— hats, books, scraps of
half-thought dreams unbound —
Piled on
As time piled on
To keep me busy unforgetting
The nothing that is never the same
When your name no longer gets called.
Copyright 2009 Maureen E. Doallas. All Rights Reserved.
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5 comments:
Raw. Those last words, "when your name is no longer called," hurt, remind me of times when the name has burst out of habit only to be bitten back, swallowed, grieved. Beautiful loss.
Love thise: "As time piled on/To keep me busy unforgetting." There's some pain here, and it folds out beautifully from the words.
Oh, sigh. Been there. It's never the same again.
Keys just dangle, hooked
Fast like a mouse in owl eyes
yes, all those belongings
all those memories...dangling
Sad poem. The most moving image for me was this one: "every table/ Is fixed with two chairs."
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