two years later, he speaks

1

I found your glasses under the bed this morning.

They'd grown dusty in the boxes you packed in those months of preparation ages ago, when I found them,

I was trying to clean up the dust that buried the bookshelves. Staving the rust off the windowsills. I was thinking about mowing the yard.

You can't blame me for finding your glasses, can you?

I admit that I looked for them. Searched for them. Yelped with joy when I found their tiny rectangle frames, thought about how beautiful you were when you wore them, your placid hazel eyes just above your silver nose ring so elegant and spare, the way you first made me sing. I wept then

as I shivered above the sink, drowning my face in the tap.

2

Did you know that I vacuum the place once a week now?

I pick up the place before I leave off for town,

take the rug to the cleaners every three weeks, mop the kitchen, take care to fix the leaks, make the bed; occasionally I trouble to change the sheets.

When it snows I shovel sidewalk, I make up the fire and drink the ginger tea you always told me you liked. (I finally tried it and like it a lot too, lots of sugar and lots more milk, just like you.)

Tomorrow I'll pick some of the yellow flowers you planted in the yard.

I'll set them in the inkwell and balance the accounts, I'll think about you buying the seeds for those flowers at that flea market in southern Maine next to the field with all the cows, and for a moment you'll flicker there, leaning down to smell them. I'd touch you on the breast if I could. Hold you again as you wept in that Autumn's sun.

I think about these things, cleaning the place up.

After all, you could be back any day now.