I still set two cups out in the morning
before I remember.
The kettle boils for both of us,
steam rising into a kitchen
that holds your shape in all the wrong places –
the chair pushed out at an angle,
the window you always meant to fix,
the silence that has learned
to sound like you.
I have memorized the way you left:
coat on the hook, keys on the sill,
as if you'd only stepped out
for milk, for air, for something
neither of us can name.
Love is not the grand gesture
I once believed it was.
It is this: the useless cup,
the cooling water,
the way I reach for you
in the ordinary dark
and find only
the particular warmth
of your absence.