The Window Cleaner Writes to the Astronaut's Husband
Now that she has not come back
I will tell you.
It is not that her face disappeared among
the constellations
or that you wake space-tumbled from sleep
the last digital glimpse of dark skin her tied-back hair
leaving you. You expect this way of mourning
as you expect an open door to lead to a room
which leads to another room a corridor of blank walls
that contain your passage. You are shaken
by gravity. Each morning your feet touch the floor.
You stand. You walk. The sink twists the light above
into reflection as you brush your teeth. Understand
it is pull that failed her fails you—
our insistent magnetic planet
a wanting back what it dared release
to a rocket’s surge. Understand the physics
of greed the orbit of earth as a circle of want
the way we are each held beyond our will
and that never never could it have left her free.
