It did seem like the time, today --

It did seem like the time, today –
to stay in, blanket up, and ride the bitter winter
noonday glare and let it take me there,
wherever there might be – and so I fell asleep
and landed in the house, our house, her house,
her studio, where she sat making do –

wondering what all her paints and brushes,
paper, palettes had come to – and where
the drawing table was – “where are
the books?” she asked – and ardently I met her
querying dim looks and fell in front of her
and put my head into her lap, to gasp

and tell her, crying, how I hadn’t known,
I hadn’t known that she’d come back, that she
was still alive: and how the ardor grew
until it shook me to the point of shivering
so hard I’d had to dive into another day again! –
resurfaced from the sudden sleep-deep

liminality of being there with her again,
and coming to inside the gory glory of the glary
afternoon again, to breathe again, out
of her pale receding froth. (So cold!)
I got up: padded, foggy, to the kitchen: heated –
drank – a cup of steaming chicken broth.

http://www.amityvillerecord.com/News/2003/0806/Obituaries/

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