If I Were Writing to You Today

 





If I Were Writing to You Today, I’d Say:

 

To explain grace requires/a curious hand.

                                    Marianne Moore

                                    The Pangolin 

Remember: 

your yesterday

            clothes damp from being

            on you from your sitting

            in hours

            of drizzle of let up of deluge of worn then shorn

            and flung to sit

            in the corner

            of the bathroom &

            crumpled: how

            they resemble all the rest

            of your clothes how

            they used

            to look before being washed then

            before being dried (remember

                                    the clothesline                                    

                                    by the sea and

                                    in Maine

                                    how your favorite

                                    turtle came back

                                    smelling like fog

                                    and salt?)

            I ironed and folded 

            two loads of wash, I

            folded your yesterday clothes.

            They are all taken in

            and taken care of

            taken

            upstairs and set prim

            at the foot

            of your empty bed

            without you  

            in them




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