Your energy crackled and sizzled
like sparklers that morning,
as you sat drinking your tea
and reading the newspaper.
I didn’t see it then, only now.
At the time, I went to my study
and sat very still
in the dark, curtained room.
Though you said you’d be back,
my body knew
you were already gone.
But my mind clung
to the phone calls,
then the emails, each shorter
than the last, as if coming
from farther
and farther
away.
A Life in Poems 