Absence

Between pines, a pause

in the forest, transparent, yet visible,

like how no, in its nothing

is still an answer, is the water

I could not give her, the wish

taken out of the well; and her bones

left to vanish in their circle

become the circle, are the clearing

I approach. And when at last I am alone,

I ask her death to hold me, the way air holds up

a bird above its home. Or how my seat, when I stood up

became empty, and remained—in those moments

when she asked and I walked toward her—both an end

and a waiting,

and an end to the waiting.