November
and the stillness
of an implied autumn
nudges at me the way a little boy pulls on his dad's coat
or the way foam appears and reappears at the shore's edge,
driven silently by the tide's quiet insistence.

I have built a new
separate home for my memories of you.
Floors covered in woodshavings and dozens of mirror fragments
strewn across the room
hanging
on Christmas lights, rugs of cut out sweaters.

Sometimes at night
when the stillness is infinite
and even the chamomile
left cooling on the bedside table
knows
it is far from home,
I can hear your laugh,
wild and sweet—
a bulging ripe strawberry in spring.