Now over the Empty Apartment

You in the door look back
        and are no longer there,

although that is the hall
        through which you walked a hundred times
thinking well, what of it?—awake

        in the middle of the night—

and that is the window where the sky drew back and night came on,

        where the planes banked in
scheduled and flashing from the west—

        Your hand was pulling shut the shade
and mornings, your hand pulled it up again

though you are not there, you in the door going over the days,
        going as a wave goes, that is

nowhere, and all your lovers now? Those real,
        imagined? The sad,
gratified sighs?

        All that while,
through the evenings, didn't something
        quietly call,

something off in the marginal light,

in the vapor through which
        the faces of passengers dimmed

and flickered? That slight
        rivering, insistent

beneath the blare of the television, beneath you as well, at the surface

busy with addresses, with pictures & books. You crowded the place,
        you in the door

who looking back now—over the hallway, the shine
        of the relentless floor—

can no longer be sure

you are the person indeed who had that body
        and lived days in it there.

Copyright © 2007 Kate Northrop All rights reserved
from Things Are Disappearing Here
Persea Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission