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.