Nancy drops by with a hot dish.
That’s what we do here
instead of hacking off our hair.
Practical, she fills your space
with little things: blueberry cobbler
and new carburetor, some small
sharp polictics. I chat and do not tell her
your death is little things.
I sit on the floor and sort
our socks, nesting yours in boxes.
Look, here is the pair
you wore to bed.
The scratch of that red wool
on my bare legs--
_______
Again, one of those poems for Barbara. The "Nancy" of the poem is actually the voice I've assumed. (It should be "Erin drops by with a hotdish" -- but I couldn't pull it off.) Nancy was Barbara's partner, and herself a good friend. I wrote this little suite of poems in part as a gift for her -- since it is useless to give gifts to the dead. Not that that stops me.
Giving gifts to the dead helps heal the hurt soul of the giftgiver.
"The scratch of that red wool
on my bare legs--"
reminds me of an Issa haiku somehow it gives a concreteness to the death