Poems About Loss

The first month you count the days. The second month you count the weeks.

They asked me to say something. As if the right words exist.

Bring nothing. Bring your body and your coat and a tissue you will find

The machines keep count of something— not life exactly, more like the argument life makes

There's a word for the way your coffee cup still sits on the second shelf where no one else would put it—

You dreamed something important last night. I know this because you always do.

My hands still set the table for two. Not every night—just Thursdays, when my hands forget

The strangest part is the ordinary: how the fridge still hums its one note, how the bills arrive

I write you letters in my head on the bus, in the shower, in the three seconds