Everywhere the settled look of another person’s life.
………….The sink: shiny-walled again, lush with the loss
of spoons. The shawl: unhooked from its dreaming tangle,
………….draped anew on the mattress edge. Wrappers binned, cups
cupboarded, glasses repaired to their standing line.
………….Even the bathroom freed of the body, blood unspotted
on the toilet bowl, hair pulled off the tile, nothing
………….in the drain at all but the silver mesh of its own passing.
Only the touch of the curtain, now and then, against
………….the window, like a diver on a board, or a bride held
in a doorway, its motioning motionless still. And still
………….I am there, my unwashed hair and my dirty coat, my fingers
coffee-stained and cracked. Still the bottle on the table,
………….the pill caught in its throat. The cup I need to fill and won’t.