Elegy for Loss

When the cleaning women come again it takes much more

cajoling before you let them into your house, let them

scrub the grime caked over nearly a year on floorboards,

bathroom tile, kitchen cabinets, shelves still groaning

with the weight of every last rusted spoon and knick-knack

you salvaged from your other life—Then, you were known

as wife of the retired judge everyone remembers, dapper

to your own handcrafted elegance. Perlita says, gently,

Let us wipe the dust off this picture frame, then

you can put it back in your bedroom. Nothing is

going to disappear. How long has it been since you lifted

the faded mustard flannel draped over the Winkelmann

upright piano, since anyone ran fingers over its

yellowed keys? Trembling mallets wrapped in wool

stop just short of the soundboard. Has the refrigerator

light gone out, or has someone disconnected the appliance?

Extravagance, surplus poured around the ordinary:

for you, slipping a half stick of butter into a pot

of pasta; or saying that in some countries, men show admiration

for women by slapping their butts. Do you remember going

into the shoe store downtown at least once a month? Now

I'm told you shuffle around in a pair of plastic hospital

slippers from your recent confinement. The last time we speak

on the telephone, you cycle from crying over your empty bank

accounts to railing about the loss of your house. How

to write about a room with a bare light bulb, a threadbare

sofa, half a moon broken clean in the sky from its shadow?

This elegy for everything we've lost, and lost between us.

Source: Maps for Migrants and Ghosts (Southern Illinois University Press, 2020)