Shrine: a poem

It’s cold again, too soon. Finding warm socks

and my favorite flannel makes me think of you,

as does putting water on for tea, and the quiet

gray of the afternoon. I know this won’t always

be so, and even now my brain is charting new

pathways that won’t lead me to thoughts of you,

and you will get lost in the overgrowth of new.

New life. Lived life. I want to build a shrine 

on the forest path we walked together, a place 

for the winter boots you left behind, the brass 

candlesticks, the pages torn out of books you

tucked in pockets, the cleft in your chin, your 

strong body, your tears and your anger. I will 

make an offering: there in the ferns, under the 

aspen and birch, among the pines, I will lay 

them to rest. There they will have a place on 

the earth, resting in the arms of the goddess,

resting in the arms of the woman I was when

I was with you, the woman you imagined into 

being, the woman who loved the man you were 

struggling to become. Right there, in the ferns, 

on the fertile earth of the forest floor, the life we 

never lived will take root, for how could it not 

grow there?