Rooms Remembered

I needed, for months after he died, to remember our rooms—
            some lit by the trivial, others ample

with an obscurity that comforted us: it hid our own darkness.
            So for months, duteous, I remembered:

rooms where friends lingered, rooms with our beds,
            with our books, rooms with curtains I sewed

from bright cottons. I remembered tables of laughter,
            a chipped bowl in early light, black

branches by a window, bowing toward night, & those rooms,
            too, in which we came together

to be away from all. And sometimes from ourselves:
            I remembered that, also.

But tonight—as I stand in the doorway to his room
            & stare at dusk settled there—

what I remember best is how, to throw my arms around his neck,
            I needed to stand on the tip of my toes.

Credit

Copyright © 2015 by Laure-Anne Bosselaar. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 25, 2015, by the Academy of American Poets.

About this Poem

“This year, the old tradition of spring cleaning caught up with me. I unhooked the curtains I sewed a few years ago to wash and press them.  As I hung them back into each room, I realized how important it has been for me lately to remember the past, but to place those memories in ‘their’ rooms, as if—contained that way—I could see and preserve them more clearly.”
Laure-Anne Bosselaar