Four years
The smell of him went soon
from all his shirts.
I sent them for jumble,
and the sweaters and suits.
The shoes
held more of him; he was printed
into his shoes. I did not burn
or throw or give them away.
Time has denatured them now.
Nothing left.
There will never be
a hair of his in a comb.
But I want to believe
that in the shifting housedust
minute presences still drift:
an eyelash,
a hard crescent cut from a fingernail,
that sometimes
between the folds of a curtain
or the covers of a book
I touch
a flake of his skin.
--Pamela Johnson Gillilan (1918-2001) in Staying Alive: Real Poems for Unreal Times (2002), ed. Neil Astley
I absolutely loved this elegy....it was read in class the other day and it left me with tear in my eyes and goosebumps on my fore-arms...Thanks Pamela...your poem has made me appreciate poetry a lot more....it connected with my soul....
Posted by: Lynette D'souza | 08 March 2010 at 09:34