Thinking of It

Here before the sun rises, I find it difficult to make the words, to lean

forward three years after your death & unable to say for sure if I’ve

mentioned how in those first days our daughter would come & sit—

sweet, bewildered comfort—& lift her arm around me. In the darkness

of our new home, I search the nearness of your ordinary box, the

speckled dust & grit of what I imagine are your bones first in my hands

& then in my lap. Like some cruel joke, this closeness, & equally

absurd I ask aloud what you want for Christmas. Would you like to

close your eyes & feel the breeze? Claim the end of summer among the

dragonflies in our yard? Would you come to us & hold our daughter?