The life that was
waiting for me is
gone. It was
there so long I’d
thought it was
part of me.

It used to hover
at the skin of me
or farther off
like a boy
I once kept
not too far,
close

enough to be
a motion I thought
my own.

It didn’t happen
suddenly
or in dark.
In truth it went
patiently
like someone
packing from a list,
planning to
go thoroughly

In truth it went
slow.

I think of it now
but without it
it’s like a privacy
emptied-out, a thought
closed.

It’s not that: I’ve been
left before. It’s like
when I was young,
what I thought
music was.

Once it loved nothing
but to wait for me

and I thought it
somewhere I could go.
Thought I could walk
into it when I was
done, like

entering a building
whose objects come
from home,
just enough
like my life that I’d
go, and at the back
not a light but
a source.

In a certain way,
nothing’s much
changed. It’s like
not knowing to count
and then counting
to one.