Happenstance

Happenstance, my hero, my bad habits

I wear like a Sunday dress

at the church social. I am more and more

a fan of chicanery

and other obsolete words to indicate joy

that’s done and gone.

Where are the cantatas, the canned pears

in wine sauce, where is the first

Ms. Sadoff, and where the second? My mother

will live forever in her bitter claim

on solitude, peering from behind the window.

The empty house isn’t empty enough:

moments battered by stepping over them

become silver here, chips of paint

from the radiator shining as I make my way

through the dark spaces so I can save

on electricity, so I don’t shape

my thoughts around what’s missing,

throwing shawls around them

to give them life and warmth (so essential

in a cold spell). Here are the dances

of and by the fireplace, here are the repasts,

the chow times, here are the little digs

and the private asides where you assigned

your virtues and my vices. Here is

out my very window the yellow window

of November, window of each November,

as long as there are Novembers to remember.