ABSENCE

You think you're gone
That makes the space
Of the room virgin again
And fills the one you left
With immense pain.

Not so, I suppose
When you've lived there
Body and soul, the space
Gets impressed pell-mell
Like a river bank at the day end.

These are marks better felt
Than seen as by a blind man
Whose eyes are niches
From where the candles
Were removed to light the other senses.

Your absence is everywhere
Where those lips dolloped sweetness
Where those fingers stroked the flesh
Where your voice made silence language
And your person choreographed movements.

Now when you are gone
Those imprints are absences
Like the packing of a box
That goes hollow
From the contents unpacked and gone.