For loss, a poem in May

Patience

Paris Street, rainy day, 1877: Caillebotte

I dined at last, with

your death today.

It waited at the corner,
I tried to send it away.

Tried hard not to notice
it sidling up,

at the magazine stand,

at the bank, at the hub

of all that I did

on my way.

But there it stood,

patient as rain

looking in when I looked out,

again, again.

It took form in all that

I passed,

the happy, the first,

the indifferent, the last.

Through doors I fled and

sheltered in vain

it found me, endured,

and longed to begin.

It shivered and smiled and groaned
and grinned.

I tired, relenting,

and raised my hand:

Welcome stranger,
from a strange land

Over dinner I sighed,

then invited it in.


PD/May/2013
Paris Street, rainy day: Caillebotte