I will write you
a thousand poems
when you are gone
in words
that I can not find now.
I tell you now
so that you
can look for them
inside me
where they are now hidden
neath the fear and guilt
of not being
all I could have been for you
and if uttered
will shorten our time.
Each day
in simple tasks
when you are gone
I will talk to you
as much as the one
that lives inside me
that I call I.
Little things,
too small to remember
you will share with me
in my mind.
Big things,
you will help me settle
by listening
and making me rephrase
by your probing silence
penetrating my skull
after you are gone.
You will be here
with me
by my side the rest of my life
I will want to share things
with you
and try to remember them
and show you
when I see you next.
Remember the time
I moved to Maryland
a year before you
I drove down the roads
and looked at houses
talking to you about them
in my mind
Waiting for you to join me.
It will be the same
almost the same
except the time apart.
I will tell myself
not to talk to you anymore
not tell you about some new spot
but I will do it anyway
until I babble and repeat myself
and talk outloud
like a madman
walking down the side of the road.
I will write you
a thousand poems
when you are gone
in words
that I can not find now.
Roe, 12/19/09
