Page 30 - WDickinson_Blackwell_Submission

1980: Pandemic Flux Losses

The bedsheets, crinkled a certain way in morning,
the soft imprint on the pillow,
I imagine you pulling the sheets up to your chin,
living evidence that you
have been here.

Imagine you, holding the
compression of the ego between your
full-again hands.

(Flux, in and out.)

Your words go in, the connotation is the residue,
the rumpled print left by your hand like,
“I was here. I am here.”

Are you?

Consider
every time I
come home from work. Another thing of yours
is missing.

(Flux, mass losses.
So I won’t have to donate them myself
when the time comes. In preparation,
you say. Unnecessary,
I insist.)

You tell me, “Let’s go to a carnival.”
“Let’s go on a walk.”
Or,
“Let’s just
rest here
for awhile.”

26