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THE THINGS THAT YOU WERE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2008

Bonnie Raingruber
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Information

Type
Poetry/Fiction
Information
Palliative & Supportive Care , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , March 2008, pp. 89
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

I wander pensively
in your garden, leaving
the hospital where you died.
Here beside your roses
and deer statues
you are alive.
I feel your character
growing in a pot
of chicken-n-hen cactus.
The blades on your windmill
are silent now but I know
you are here.
I look lovingly at
the oft-worn straw hat
and feel you pulsating me.
Remembered things
weave your spirit
square-knotted to mine.
I smile, cradling memories.
So familiar and strong
is your presence.
For months hence
I will startle when I feel
you in the things that you were.
I round the curve beyond
the courthouse where our divorce
was final & startle seeing a red pick-up.
Instantly the truck-bed
is packed with living
snapshots of you.
And you ride beside me
in the passenger seat
–an unwelcome hitchhiker.
When will I see,
without seeing you
my love?