Missing Person

A poem in honor of my wife Nancy Lee, 8/29/1959 -- 9/26/2023

	Missing Person 

The afterimage which walks with me 
holding my left hand 
and that which walks with you 
holding your right: 
do they feel the same? 
Do you also feel the presence 
of absence 
now that the irrevocable blade 
has cut between us? 

It is solid as a crutch, this lack; 
it feels like something 
to lean against for balance, 
but I list to the left, 
drawn by your vacuum, 
walking in circles. 
One day perhaps, 
I will fly straight as a slung stone, 
along some fresh tangent. 

I have become indecipherable,  
a torn half-sheet, 
the rest of the message written on you 
and lost. 
I still sleep on my side 
of the bed, 
still cook for two because 
halving the recipes you wrote 
has become sacrilege. 

In this I am being unfaithful: 
you were never sentimental; 
you left me clear instructions 
to stop sniveling and get on with it. 
Only by clinging to that part of you 
can I let the rest go. 

For a time, we were a tree
and I your other branch, 
in the indifferent world,
the only one now green.
Borrowing your resolution 
I must bloom for us both.