When My Beloved Left Me

When My Beloved Left Me

When my beloved left me, I was just fine.
I got up early, fed the baby, put the coffee on to brew.
I dusted in our bedroom, tidying up the bureau junk,
threw away old movie ticket stubs,
set aside to put away four odd screws and an Alan wrench,
and then picked up his pocket knife and ...oh...
his pocket knife.  I should have sent it with him.
It was always with him, to fix my glasses, de-tag my sweaters,
kind of carve our initials in the beech out by the lakeshore.  
I held his knife close in my hand until it warmed
and finished my first coffee swallowing hard against the memories.

I took the baby for a walk
remembering I took the baby for a walk
the day that my beloved left me.  
His father’s eyes squinted up at me against the fall sunshine.
His father’s happy smile urged me to pull the wagon faster, faster.
I felt stares, speculation, and always gossip, gossip, gossip  
from the houses sitting back along our block.  
I lifted my chin, and smiled, and waved when necessary,
knowing sunglasses would hide smiles that didn’t reach my eyes.
I chattered merrily my mantra in a little made up song
that mommy is fine and mommy is fine and mommy is just fine.  

My sister-in-law stopped by, and took us out to lunch.
The baby had cheerios and raisins,
she had the chicken club with coleslaw, and I had... something.
Her pitying eyes missed nothing,
from the newly gray strands straggling from my hastily done ponytail,
to the jeans hitched up with an old belt that my beloved left me.  
Her lips pursed small, she took my hands and said, “How are you?”
I took my hands back, not unkindly, and said I was just fine.  
What should I say; I am bereft in this “if only” dominated loneliness,
that I was unprepared for mourning, ill prepared for loss,
do I ask advice on hair color; confess I don’t know how to mow the lawn?

Back at the house, with the baby at his nap,
I finished up the laundry from the wash a week ago.  
I yelled up that my beloved left a pen inside his work shirt once again,
and found unanswered silence to the familiar bellow my undoing.  
I gathered up the load of workpants, shirts, and tees
and took them down with me to huddle on the laundry rug.
We tucked up in the corner like a punished child,
his still warm clothes and I,
and rocked and grieved and rocked and grieved
and I was so afraid that I was not just fine.  
I woke with a rueful smile and grains of cat litter stuck against my cheek.  



I counted the hours like a lover longing for our bed,
hearing keening winds outside and winter that had come too soon.
I pulled blue furry socks upon my feet,
remembering that my beloved never left me with cold toes.
Tenderly I placed his pillows in a long bunched row that I could throw one arm across and snuggle up against.
I pretended that the featherweight ghost beside me
weighed me down into security, contentment, dreams.
I sent a sleepy radar kiss blown to find him in his vast, strange night,
a mumbled “loveyou” meant to hold his spirit close for yet a little while,
a promise to him that tomorrow, or the next day, I would be just fine.