He is not here. Where did it go, my grief, my grief?Once you loved me on a hillside. I was prettyand tender as silence. Some things I knew well enough:first you love and then you lose.I had no idea there was nothing more.

How far away they seem, each of those nightsthat I slept with my body curled into the absence of yours,

In waiting I learn to live with the anticipations of loss—

I grieve you as a lover grieves, lingering.