The Wake

“I am scared in this city,” my mother
told my father, “when you leave
me with myself. We work apart, we errand
apart, we have different cars. But in this city, I am
in this city,
still
with you.”

“In days, when we are with our separate
selves,” my father said, “I hold this city close to me. I pull it in walking on
its sidewalk—scratching its back in my shuffled strides. Walking on, I come to the bus stop, and I stop to sit with you. The bench forms
to my body; feeling you as I wait for the bus
to pull in.”

“Now when you leave,
when you have left
me,” my mother said, “this city is a stranger to me.
I am groped by my neighbors, stared at by passersby.
Their footsteps are empty on my cement—fast, unnoticing as a running jogger.
I come to the same bus stop, wanting to feel
you, but the bench is crowded,
with faces seemingly smudged like a Jack Vettriano painting, so I can find
you, in your face, in the crowd.
But I know this crowd isn’t you.”