If you’ve outlived a loved one, 

It’s their remnants in the mundane 

The freshens each hurt. The dust 

Collecting on their shoes, the absence 

Of footsteps on the stairs, and the silence 

Of each evening. Youth left with the last time 

You opened the front door. Keys fumbled through 

The lock and we wasted the years humbled by 

The unkept dreams of childhood. I am fully

Functional but not really. I forget the shape

Of his eyebrows when frustrated and his grin 

When victorious. From where I sit, he is still 

There, tucked within journals and poems

I wrote to keep him alive – through this

He will outlive me.