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James Pickles

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The widow

I feel your absence as something that breathes
and makes a shadow. At night I curl
into the dark outline where the sheets crease,
feel your warmth, hear the beating of your world.

In the garden I watch you push your weight
down through a spade. Somehow you always knew
what to plant where. I see you turn and wave,
awkwardly, the way our children do.

I still ask you all my questions, spreading them
before you on a table like a map;
you over my shoulder reading them.
I remember your fingers undoing a tap,

spinning it open, without really thinking,
whenever water splits round my palms.
It always made you serious, this, sinking
into thought as the cold crept up your arms.

So is this loss? Presence or absence?
What do you think? Sometimes I cry for hours,
seeing a spade leaning against the fence,
or the wind waving from a crowd of flowers.

 

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