- on one obscure day
- she fell into the curious space
- his presence once occupied.
- "how odd to have fallen into his absence," she thought.
- she found he was a shadowland of contradictions,
- a garden of roses hidden by walls of cacti,
- redolent with perfume and thorns,
- bounded by what had been the shape of his body.
- “I cannot be grieving;
- this is not grief,” she said, but
- her heart was erratic, irritable
- and her knee began to throb.
- she was forced to endure the experience of another’s gravity;
- his physical sensations were in her body and required her attention.
- their conjoined lives had to be explored, plumbed together,
- for purposes she could not imagine.
- then, on another obscure day, she drifted into another space,
- one more fitting for her.
- her heart began to beat a regular rhythm,
- the trouble in her knee eased and she ranged more freely.
- for a while she would say she understood what he endured,
- she had been a conduit for his pain and suffering,
- but she doubted she was right.
- she was left with a growing wonder
- at his need of her,
- of how she failed him,
- of why we grieve.