(unedited)

Been a week since you left
and the city hasn't recovered.
Limousines wanting cheap gasoline;
painters on strike,
elevators suspended mid-building.

At home it's no better.
Dishes re-shuffling themselves,
coffee and steak gone cold.
Toothbrushes keeling over
to shatter the bathroom mirror.

And I watching foreign news
to get a glimpse of your face.
Opening the door at midnight
thinking I might find you outside
or by the microwave, reading a book.

Oranges hardly come frozen
in this dreadful weather.

I've kept no remnants
of fleeting taste, scarce as sound,
and missing faces on cereal boxes.

There's not much I can remember.
Not much to forget.

MOMENTARY

lapse in time: sink dripping
as I pinch the ends of
a newspaper. Leaves ink

on my hands, I say, and it's not like
I need to be uncomfortable.

You aren't listening,
supine in hard chair
between pages of murder mystery
and war miles away
from this kitchen.

All while we clink cups
couplet by hot chocolate.