I often walk in the woods by my house,
and I’m used to thistles sticking to my clothes,
but not to my life. I find the path home
by sunset that dissolves below the horizon
like a piece of orange candy. Each night
sky bleeds, staining the tall grass gold.
I reach the end of the field in front of the woods;
the road feels strange and flat after the uneven
stubble of the field. I take a last look to the West,
see twilight begin to dominate, a violet bruise
spreading where the orange dissolved.
Inside the house, I doff my coat, slump
into a chair by the window, watch night steal
remaining light like a practiced jewel thief.
I sit in the dark, wondering what shadow is mine
and which ones belong to the trees. I’m
reluctant to turn on a light because I like being
surrounded by anonymity and the feeling of
existing in no particular place. In this gray
suspension, walls lose their corners. The
environment feels as personal as my skin.
Eventually, I do turn on a lamp. Everything
comes back, as if it’s been in storage and
just replaced. For a while, furniture had
disappeared as if smeared into oblivion
by a black eraser.
Grief assails me tonight like a creature
with claws tearing at my mind. It settles
into the upholstery, heavy and sharp,
demanding to be fed. Once again,
I glance at a picture on the mantle of a group
that reminds me I’ve lost everybody in my family.
The silver frame holds faces that are now
just remembrances. It seems imaginary
that I witnessed each of their burials.
Did I make that up? Or did it actually happen?
Have I been to graveside that many times?
The shovel’s rhythmic bite into the earth
feels like a dream, not quite real.
So, I spend the night by myself without
television, absorb silence as if it were a healing
medicine. I’ll fall asleep in my chair because
the bed without someone beside me is as lonely
as a key without a lock, like the key
I keep in my desk and can’t remember anymore
what it opens.
