You were sitting by the window in the afternoon

and it was snowing. I knelt on the floor.

No matter what I said, you wouldn't stop trying

to get out of your chair. I said, she'll be back soon,

she had to go downstairs but she'll come back.

You had a hand on each arm of the chair

and you pushed as hard as you could, hunched over,

your arms shaking until you collapsed.

You couldn't lift yourself at all.

I bent forward so you would see my face

so like your own, so you would know you knew me

and that I was with you in the room.

Your eyes were blue and blank.

You were looking into another world. It was quiet

except for the sound of you trying to get out of the room

to find your wife. Except for my voice

saying we only have to wait a little longer,

not much longer. You didn't stop trying to reach her

and I stopped trying to reach you. I knelt on the floor

watching you try over and over,

your shirt damp with sweat.

 

*

 

It might be selfish to want to tell you

what happened when you were gone

from your body, to want you to know

what it was like, but you were there

in the room and it's strange

for you not to know. I want to say I'm sorry

I was sometimes afraid of you

because when I believed you weren't there

in your body, I didn't know. It was impossible

to know. Today I went into the room

and it was empty. Every room is empty of you.

In every room, I know you by your absence.

 

*

 

Twenty-one days after you died, I wrote:

I will give the world back to him,

the empty sky, the small cold river

running into a grate at the edge of the road.

I will give him back to the world.

 

*

 

I don’t know where that certainty came from

or when I lost it. Today is two hundred and ninety-eight days.

I wear your old shirts and listen to your radio shows,

take care of what you would want taken care of:

I clean the kitchen, try to get her to eat.

I go into your workshop and open

the drawers of your father’s toolbox

as you might have done after he died.

I turn the thimble of a small silver micrometer

and look for something to measure. I sit in your chair

at your table and try to understand how everything

outlasted you. I listen to your voicemails.

There is one you left when you thought I’d left for good

without saying goodbye. I had only gone to the store.

 

*

 

Last night, the clouds were carried off in a current

and the sky broke apart, and you already know

the light that came through,

otherwise I couldn’t tell you. When I came inside,

I saw myself in the mirror

as if I was you, and you looked at me,

and it was the first time I saw my face

after nearly a year apart.

 

*

 

Today I sat on the steps and remembered you

patiently digging a grave for my rabbit.

Its body lay in a shoebox near the trees

and it was raining. You dug a deep grave, deeper

than necessary. You wanted to do it right.

But once it was done, I sat at the window

and stared at the edge of the yard, imagining

the cardboard dissolving in the damp ground

and the rabbit unprotected. You tried to tell me

why I shouldn’t be afraid, that he wasn’t there in his body

in the shoebox in the ground

but I was still afraid, so to put me at ease

you went back into the rain and dug up the shoebox

and took it to your workshop. You built a small pine coffin,

measuring and marking the wood

with your pencil, sawing exactly along each line.

You let me stroke the cold soft ears again

then nailed the lid shut.

 

*

 

I throw myself against each day I’m trapped in.

I go for walks and try to figure out if you still exist:

if you exist in my memories and each memory

is a world that still exists, then somewhere

we’re sitting together on a train

through a cold marsh, the cattails rustling

in a burning blue sky, and I don’t know if you can hear me

when I turn to tell you that sometimes I miss you so much

I can’t keep walking. I watch branch shadows

wave over the ground like a net.

 

*

 

We were sitting together by the empty fireplace.

You were on the phone. You said, “I’m here with—”

and looked to me. I couldn’t say it. You were the one

who gave me my name. Outside it was dark, and I imagined

swimming in the lake, in the silence pulling at the center of you

into which you disappeared, slowly

at first, then all at once.

 

*

 

I never got used to it. By the time I could account

for what was lost, I had lost more.

Loss that didn’t seem possible.

A storm already overhead

and moving faster. At a certain point,

we put a lock on every door. I slept with a key

around my neck and sometimes woke to the sound

of my door rattling in its frame.

Now I look to the door and imagine you

on the other side, and I want to let you in.

 

*

 

Early on, we were walking down the driveway

and you told me there were people in the shadows

at the edge of your vision, sitting on the steps.

You said they always disappeared

when you turned to look. When they came into the house,

you couldn’t figure out what they wanted, like the morning

you came into the kitchen and found them

waiting for you. They would only say

that they had been waiting for hours.

You were afraid. You tried to tell me

what was happening, but I could only understand

parts of what you said. They’re angry with me, you said.

I don’t know why they’re angry with me.

 

*

 

You forgot that the house you were in

was your own. You forgot how to walk, how to eat.

In the end, lying on your bed, your hands were clasped

and you were mouthing words to the ceiling. Your voice,

when it came, was like wind. We lifted you upright

and fed you. You were in pain. We arranged pillows

and blankets, tried to make you comfortable. We told you

you were safe. Slowly you looked at us

and whispered. We couldn’t understand

but we bowed our heads to listen.

One night, I asked if you could hear me

and you nodded. Now, I look to where

you were, and I don’t need to know

if you can hear me to keep repeating

what I need you to know.

 

*

 

Early in the afternoon, in the hallway

she said, I think he’s gone

and I followed her into the room.

We sat with your body for hours.

Your wife, your son, your daughter.

I wasn’t afraid. I held your hand.

I looked at your hands. I tried to prove to myself

that I had you memorized.

We sat with you and talked to you

and looked at you, and looked at you

until a man and a woman arrived

from the funeral home.

They wrapped you in your bedsheets

and lifted you onto a stretcher. We carried you

down the stairs of the house.

Carefully, they put you in the car

and shut the door. We watched

as the car pulled out of the driveway

and turned into the road.

 

*

 

Sometimes, suddenly and briefly

you appeared, though it happened less

towards the end. Like a few seconds of music

in relentless static, a clear familiar phrase.

Only weeks before you died, I heard you

calling for me from the next room

like you were trying to wake me from a dream.

Your voice was strong and clear.

I heard the voice I remember calling my name.