After boxing up the suits in your closet, 
the ties hanging on the rack, 
comes clearing out your desk.

After I find your Master’s diploma in the file 
next to the house deed, after I touch 
your father’s gold cuff links,

read an essay you wrote in college on motivation,
I look up at the book shelves —
five Thomas Pynchon novels,

a row of Isaac Bashevis Singer,
The Life and Times of Groucho.
After I throw away your worn wallet

with social security card, drivers’ license, 
I find a newspaper clipping about a restaurant
in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, 

the town you left behind but when mentioned, 
always made you smile.
This thickening feeling, 

like the empty lots of my childhood.
There is such a space 
to cross to where you are.
                        

Boredom all day, television in the evening. 
I pump my own gas, set the thermostat 
for Standard Time, program the all-night lamp, 
change the bills to automatic deduction,

Thursdays carry the everyday trash 
to the curb — Wednesdays, comingled,
Will I ever learn which is which? 
I am not falling, have an appetite,

barbeque on the new electric grill
with Mexican and Indian sauces
from Trader Joes.
I found a denim shirt on sale

that snaps, no buttons to fight with.
My body doesn’t creak.
I can walk up and down stairs.
My pink sweatshirt is warm and fits.
                        

Your books huddle together 
on shelves like abandoned lovers,
begging to be read aloud.

I count thirty-five by Irish authors
Like Joyce you loved to quote: 
Do you think life is a paradox? 

A quiet man, you let yourself be 
in The Wake’s lines without punctuation, 
running each other over.  

Oxygen mask removed, 
breath stopped; pulse silent,
the attendants carried you away.

Not the way the hero goes out 
in a Forties movie, smile on his face. 
Here’s lookin’ at you.