It Just Moves

The house is cold without you.
It has a strange rhythm,
an echo without a voice.
How to sleep, drink coffee, grind
the workaday toil, cast out by death,
dumb now in the stillness of your absence,
how?
Because you have always warmed me,
calmed my erratic, overcharged pursuits.
Because perfect closeness was ours – my stomach
is split, my forehead is tight, folded. Forgive me.
Cherish me still as I cherish you – let this not be
the end for us. I see your half-closed eyes. I kiss
your forehead. O love! It hurts! It is all unreal.
How can it be over? How can I emerge from this
hollow? I wake and you are gone.
I see you everywhere, but you are gone.

Allison Grayhurst is a member of the League of Canadian Poets. She has over 450 poems published in international journals and anthologies. She has eleven published books of poetry and five collections, as well as six chapbooks and one e-chapbook. She lives in Toronto with her family. She also sculpts, working with clay. Visit her website: http://www.allisongrayhurst.com.