Sunday, October 11, 2009

Nothing Is Ever the Same (Poem)

Nothing Is Ever the Same

Nothing is ever the same:

Not the brrringing of the telephone
When you record the message

Not the favorite restaurant
Where every table
Is fixed with two chairs

Not the bed,
One side, not mine: hers,
Now winterized forever.


Nothing is ever the same:

Not the coffee, not the tea
Grounds staled, leaves foretold

Not the car
Keys just dangle, hooked
Fast like a mouse in owl eyes

Not the vase of iris
Its water run low,
Blue-purple tongues taking bows
In a finger's drift of pollen.


Nothing is ever the same
Or was the same
After you left:

After you left
Dust on your collections
    — hats, books, scraps of
half-thought dreams unbound —

Piled on
As time piled on
To keep me busy unforgetting

The nothing that is never the same
When your name no longer gets called.

Copyright 2009 Maureen E. Doallas. All Rights Reserved.

5 comments:

Joelle said...

Raw. Those last words, "when your name is no longer called," hurt, remind me of times when the name has burst out of habit only to be bitten back, swallowed, grieved. Beautiful loss.

Glynn said...

Love thise: "As time piled on/To keep me busy unforgetting." There's some pain here, and it folds out beautifully from the words.

Laura said...

Oh, sigh. Been there. It's never the same again.

Anonymous said...

Keys just dangle, hooked
Fast like a mouse in owl eyes

yes, all those belongings
all those memories...dangling

Marcus Goodyear said...

Sad poem. The most moving image for me was this one: "every table/ Is fixed with two chairs."