More on: loss

YOU ASKED ME IN YOUR LETTER about lost loves. There is a certain pleasure in remembering them, is there not? In looking them up and being startled by what the years have done to them (surely they have not done the same to us), in laughing at our foolishness to have once been so besotted,…

My love, I can’t fathom you
nor life without the memory of you.
The preacher says there’s nothing
new under the sun. I argue
he forgets our forgetfulness.

Memories—so many people say, “You’ll always have your memories.” But even though my son died almost three years ago, memories of him are almost entirely painful. They are not Wordsworthian “recollections in tranquility,” but sharp stabbing pains that arise out of nowhere.

A poem for lost love. “If I wash myself / where will you go?”

I hear these words in your voice no matter who says them, in the well-water smell of the basement, by the artificial tree you and she would one day put a sheet over, so you never had to take it down or put it up again.

It’s sugar that makes fruit gel. Sugar preserves. Sugar is an everyday miracle. It causes fruit to retain its bright color, until it is brighter than it ever was on the tree. Heat and sugar alchemize to turn a jar of jam into a glowing jewel.

I love you. That human line of language, three syllables and eight letters with two spaces in between.

The nurses took off the sterile white net,
tied your hair back from your beautiful face,
and detached the machines to let you die.