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.
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