THREE WEEKS
Almost three weeks now and everything is different.
I suppose I expected it to be different once you'd gone.
The house is quieter.
The fridge is half-empty.
Your things are still there, now lying idle in the home you never got to retire in.
I found your glasses last night,
And cried over the food spots on the edge of the dining table.
You'd have hated that the table wasn't wiped clean,
But we can't bring ourselves to erase
This tiny trace of you,
This evidence that once you were here.
I had to replace a toilet seat the other day,
And hang a picture on the wall -
Things I could do for myself,
But I always called you to help me
So that even though I was an adult
You knew I still needed you.
And I try to fill the vacancy you left
With the songs and films and stories you loved.
It's harder than I thought it would be.
So instead we move around your things,
And we don't sit at your place at the table,
And we stare up at the sky at night
While your grandson tells us that you sleep in the stars,
And we wish we believed as fervently as he
That you could hear us.
© mjc 15 November 2015
