It isn't true to say I miss you all the time
for, when I'm busy, I don't think of you at all
but that's no different from the way it always was
when you were always here to come home to.

And I work hard at keeping myself occupied,
struggling with all the chores I never used to do -
the cooking, cleaning, washing clothes, making the bed -
the things I always used to leave to you.

I take responsibility for your garden now,
planning the flowers to look bright all summer long,
sowing the seeds then pricking out or potting up,
learning gradually what I'm doing wrong.

I do an evening class in Portuguese and try
again to master Arabic. I lift the weights
and juggle, watch the TV endlessly
and monitor the savings interest rates.

But how the hours have lengthened since you went away
and now there seem too many minutes in the day;
I'm only throwing handfuls of sand into the sea
trying to fill it up lest memory
in some unmarshalled moment surge
out of control and once more scourge
my faults and failings, grief
and guilt and disbelief
with words I dread -
that you are dead.

Mornings are worst with waking up
to one more day of loneliness;
bed-time is best with promise of
eventual unconsciousness.

But all the time between is strewn with mines
that catch the progress of the day
and snag attention from my blank routines
on fragments of yourself that stay

scattered around the house like cluster bombs
primed to explode if I so much
as notice them - your precious address book,
your handbag which you tried to clutch

bound for the hospice never coming back,
the garden sweet peas grown too late,
a shopping list in your clear handwriting,
a single shoe without its mate.

So many objects bring back memories
of you and all the years we shared,
gouging new painful wounds in mental flesh,
shrapnel of love because we cared.

It isn't true to say I miss you all the time
but, oh, how I miss you when I do.