By: Robert Lesher

Last Day
1
You would talk
And breathe out.
I would breathe in,
Let my words
Fall into
My stomach
As both of us
Listened
To the rain outside.

      2

On such days
The cats cuddled
On the crochet rug
In front of the stove,
And the records
On the turntable
Played
Up the hall
From an empty
Living room.

      3

You put on
Your favorite coat
As I rinsed out
The tea cups.
The cats’ heads jerked
Upwards
When I clinked
the saucers together,
Water rushing
Between them,
Down the sink.

      4

From the enclosed porch
Came the snap
Of your umbrella
Opening,
Like a flock
Of surprised birds
Suddenly rising.

5
And then came
The vibrating rattle
And squeak
Of the
Swollen door
Pushed open,
Then closing,
Banging,
cramming itself
against
The doorjamb;
Silence
Turning into loss.

6
I peered out
From the window,
Into the back;
Apple tree skeletons,
Soaked and grey,
A hose
run out,
Abandoned
That summer before
Never to be
Rolled-up again.

###

The Missing Boy

He left his shoes behind,
At the edge
Of the treeline,
One tipped
On its side,
Physical evidence,
That he had
Gone no further.
Six months into it all
The police were stumped.
The case was
Becoming silent.
His Mother gave
An explanation,
Just for herself,
Unto herself,
That perhaps,
This life being
An interruption,
His body went back
into the earth.
His thoughts lifted
Into the wispy breath
of trees,
Splitting down
Within the tides
Around the shore,
Mixing with pods
Of Orcas,
And no one
Could see him anymore.