It’s not the same without you here.

I’m less inclined to sit and stare out

the open window

at the sweet-winged visitors amongst

bowed seedheads,

waiting for the words to find their way

through that oculus, transformed and

translated

upon the white page spread before my

fingertips.

I get up, instead, wander – shapeless,

aimless – into the kitchen and load

the dishwasher,

that dark and hungry box, like so many,

that must continually

be fed and filled with the mundane.

When I return, the empty chair remains.

Empty of –

    you.

— C.Birde, 10/20