You keep her room the way it was
When she left you:
The hairbrush, still tangled with
auburn threads
The book left open, face down.
You always hated how she did that.
You hold hope like a
votive candle.
Every time the phone shrills
there is a moment of '
maybe;
swiftly shrivelling to '
no'
with the
countless voices that aren’t her voice.
Your
catechism:
“
No news is good news,
Where there’s life, there’s hope”
Clichés to
exist by while
living is held in
abeyance.
And you tend the shrine
faithfully, tenderly
as you wait, and watch, and pray
for her
second coming.