NEfor sorrow

When a loved one dies people say they’re mourning over their loss.Like this person was misplaced or forgotten on a shelf at the grocery store

and then picked up by some other customer before you could go back to get it.

But no matter how hard I try:

I’ll never suddenly remember where you are. No drawer is going to be opened for you to pop out again, finally found.

I lost you

I’m lost

And still your presence is everywhere.

In the book you never finished reading

the corner of the page bent

why do you always do that?

to find my place in the book

In your clothes, thrown higgledy-piggledy on a chair that I don’t dare touch

There’s probably a coin in one of the pockets.

A bus ticket.

The one tissue you always forgot to take out before putting your trousers in the washing machine.

You’re in the food in the fridge. The mustard I hated and you ate.

It’s been sitting there for months but I don’t dare throw it away

for fear of feeling the guilt of deliberately dismissing you. You told me you’d stay

with me forever. Now what’s left is mustard.