It is like this every year—a baby kingis born to die, and I will sleep alone,failing at the very thing I fear failure of.

I am cold from regret.

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,

Dim mirror above, reflect more brightly upon us all.From here, I see nothing but myselfand the face of me is trembling.

. . . and God wept onlyat dark windows, so that no one ever knew.

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

The answer I seek is one I do not truly wish to know:

I grieve you as a lover grieves, lingering.