Evening; your pure absence
cuts through me like a perfect interval,
sharp and clear.
Outside, a young woman pulls
her long coat up against the cold.
A dog barks. Birds continue to exist.

You are not here. The evening is more
and less than it would otherwise have been.
You stretch the pattern of my life thin,
spanning a mile, another mile;
you could be anywhere.

Too far for the mingling of breath, too far
for your words to pass through me,
a breeze through long grass. Open fields.

You persist in scent, in discarded strands of hair;
I refrain from brushing the duvet clean.

Do you also feel my absence, this hollow evening?
Do I pass through your mind, as you
pass through the void that is mine?

The evening is less, but it is more beautiful
for your not being here