The Shape You Left Behind

There are two mugs in the cupboard.

I use one.

The other waits

behind the sugar,

its handle turned towards the wall

as though it has learned

not to expect a hand.

Your coat is gone.

For weeks

the hook beside the door

kept its shape,

a small metal question

I could not answer.

I moved the chair

back beneath the table.

It drifts out again.

Not far.

Just enough

to look occupied

from the corner of my eye.

The clock in the kitchen

runs four minutes fast.

The hall light

flickers twice before it stays.

One floorboard complains

outside the bedroom.

You knew where to step.

I still step there.

At night

the house grows larger.

The staircase lengthens.

The rooms move apart.

Even the bed

seems to acquire another country

on the side where you

used to sleep.

Sometimes I wake

and reach across.

My hand finds

only the cold grammar

of the sheet,

the sentence ending

where your body should be.

People ask how I am.

I tell them:

fine.

It is an efficient word.

Four letters.

No explanation required.

No need to describe

the supermarket aisle

where I still reach for two,

or how I sometimes hear the gate

and wait,

or how your name remains

inside my phone

because deleting it would mean

agreeing.

There are two mugs in the cupboard.

I use one.

Tomorrow,

perhaps,

I will move the other.

But not today.