‘Are you well?’ they ask. ‘You look tired.
Your energy seems a bit down.’
‘It’s August again,’ I don’t say,
and don’t add, ‘My “cruellest month” ’.
All those remembered deaths,
none of them old yet – and the new one.
It creeps up slowly, even though I think
I’m well prepared. I forget hollowness –
until it insinuates itself, again, inside
my bones, my veins, the cavities of my gut.
The empty spaces in me, which are me, are
microcosms of the great spaces in the world
left by your unique absences: holes that can’t
be refillled. Can’t ever. But the weeks pass
again, and I move again past your passing,
your several passings, as I did each first time.
Perhaps it is as well, my dears, you die in August
or the first edge of September, or the last day in July.
The Spring arrives again, the world looks up
and thrives, filling itself with life, that starts anew.
And my life too goes on. So far. Of course
I feel myself immortal, as we all do – as you did
(most of you). But now again it’s August.
I don’t go out much, get dressed late.
I buy myself wine and chocolates
and romantic DVDs; indulge alone.
And nothing fills the hollow, lights the dark….
‘I’m fine,’ I say. ‘Just busy.’ Again and again.
Written in response to Voices, Spaces & Songbirds at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.
