The year moves on without you in it

Now it is fall without you

I had to close the windows and doors without you coming through

I kept them open for as long as I could

But the baby got cold

I watched the calendar bulldoze

This whole past summer was a lingering heatwave and I remember late August, our open bedroom window, going through your things with the fan blowing and the sound of helicopters and the smell of smoke from the forest fire that was growing billowing just on the edge of town where we used to swim

They say a natural, cleansing devastation, burning in the understory, erasing trails, there is no end

But when I'm kneeling in the heat throwing out your underwear, the devastation is not natural or good, you do belong here, I reject nature, I disagree

In the hazy light of forest fire smoke I looked across at the refineries and thought that the world was actually constantly ending and the smell and roar of the asphalt truck that was idling just out the window, tearing up our street

I missed you, of course

And I remember thinking the last time it rained here you were alive still

And that this same long heat that I was in contained you

And in this same heat I opened the window next to you on your last morning

So you could breathe

And then so you could ghost away

And now so the room will hopefully

Stop whispering

The grind of time I'm not keeping up with

The leaf on the ground pokes at my slumbering

Grief walking around, severed, lumbering

But slowly

Sovereignty reasserts itself

I don't want it though

And betrayal whines

Who and how could I

Live?