A poem...

...I wrote back in 1998 -- thirteen years ago -- seems strangely prophetic now.

I wonder how I knew then, what this was going to feel like now...when I couldn't even have predicted this heartbreak?



Paradise Lost

It isn’t any easier
to get up on Monday
mornings. Just
no need
anymore
to bribe you with
the aroma of bacon frying.

After work I
take my coupons from the Sunday paper
to the Safeway, where
Captain Crunch
is no longer among my “Nine Items or Less”
That cashier who calls everyone
“Honey” and “Baby” has
stopped asking
about the friend she used to always see me shopping
with.

Tuesday nights the
laundromat is just as crowded as ever. That
broken television set, just as loud.
But
I finish more quickly now
There are fewer clothes to sort and fold
(Not that you were ever that much help.)
I sit trance like, staring at clothes flip flopping behind the dryer’s circular window.
Latino children dart about my knees, flushed and laughing.

My sister is the only person I ever
meet for lunch.
Some Wednesdays, we eat
at that Thai restaurant I used to hate when
you would drag
me there.

But now…

Straight from the office, I still go tutor at the shelter
as usual.
As usual, the kids are
just as bad. They still
jostle and whine and vie for attention.
Still talk to loud and too fast and
nudge each other
when I explain
(for the millionth time)
the meaning of the rainbow patch on
my backpack.

I donated many of your clothes to the shelter,
where occasionally I am startled
when some random teen passes me
wearing your sweatshirt or that jersey with Allen Iverson’s number
and the little grape juice stain.

Thursday
I miss my stop on the bus because
I am staring at your crooked lettering on
tapes you made for my walkman.
I nod my head to the beat as the
unfamiliar territory
glides by.
It will take me twice as long to get home.

And home will no longer be there.

Friends offer
to take me out most Friday nights.
Ask me to join
them
at various affairs.
But I feel like a dinosaur.
The crowds are impossibly young
and beautiful.
And oblivious.
Nor do I recognize any of the
music anymore.

Saturdays are as busy as ever.
The weekend goes
so fast
with chores and errands.
(Finally got all those old photos into albums.)

I get
up and out
much more quickly now that
I don’t have to wait for you
to finish watching your cartoons.

It’s possible to spend all afternoon
in Barnes & Noble or Tower Records.
Donny Hathaway singing,
“For All We Know”
once stopped me
dead
in my tracks.
Frozen mid-aisle
like just another display.

Our friends come over to dinner
most Saturday evening. And later,
cards or videos.
I make spaghetti or chili and
They have wine. I
have my Mountain Dew.
No one drinks your four
remaining Heineken’s
still waiting
in the back of the refrigerator.
Nor does anyone
occupy
your chair.

After they’ve gone, I sit in the dark
listening
to Patti, Aretha, Oleta Adams
and Dinah Washington.

Even though I know better.

Later, I rouse myself from my chair
and thoughts
and put myself to bed
But, I don’t sleep as soundly
without
your snoring…and awaken
Late at night
when the reruns
(Lucy, Andy Griffith, Perry Mason)
are all in black and white.

Only the infomercials
can lull me back to sleep.

Strangers
sit in our pew now,
since I don’t go to church as
religiously.
Your mother still calls and sometimes
I sit through the 11 o’clock service with her.

Afternoon bargain matinees
are as crowded and raucous as ever
on those Sundays when I
force myself to go
instead of visiting your grave.

There’s not too much coming out
that I’m really pressed to see anyway.
So I find myself back at home, where
I seldom bother to cook when it’s just me.
Instead, I
watch “60 Minutes” while
ironing my clothes for the week,
& measuring out my meds for the next
Seven days

before I go to bed.