Now that you are gone
I am doing more heavy lifting,
not just in the ways I expected.
I’m discovering
that the burdens are not light,
nor particularly dark,
that I may not lift them
comfortably
but my muscles are growing.
It is only my need for safety
that keeps me imagining
you are the same person
arriving home
as the one who left in the morning,
the one I kissed goodbye
or forgot to.
It is only my tendency
to avert my eyes
from my many odd differences,
the risks of change
that scratch down my days
whether I watch or ignore them.
If I who know myself a little
can be a stranger
by nightfall,
I can only
nod humbly
with a wary and sincere welcome
every time you fill the doorway
with your graceful light.