Without

Maybe one day I will learn how to live

without, without her and her, and she and

them, without him. Lately, I am mostly

absence. I have lived so long within

my body’s clever disguise, so complete

this heart, these eyes. But maybe a body’s

largely past tense. Like a house empty but

for hours a chill blows through it. Maybe

I am like wind briefly still, a column

of air that found a form to fill. Waiting

for a sign to go where wind goes when it’s

not with us—when without becomes within.