The Way the Mail Stops Coming

 

You don't lose someone all at once.

It’s a slow vanishing act,

Day by day, the absence takes a seat,

Sips your coffee, reads your paper.

 

Her scent lingers like a question

On pillows, in closets, a whisper in drawers.

With time, even ghosts pack up,

Move on from the fabric and the paper.

 

A mailbox grows hungry, its mouth agape,

No more letters with her name,

No more words to say: I am here,

To say: remember.

 

This kind of going away is a puzzle:

How she fills the room without a body,

How the years will take her bit by bit,

But never entirely, never all at once.