After They Leave
You still have your arms,
your fingers, your lips,
your own, not hers,
not her wrist or her stories
or her stomach that you placed
your hand and
pretended there
was a baby
inside.
You have none
of that now. You have
your room, this summer,
the slumber of days,
the mosquito
by your ear, and the cold
at night gets so cold
without her. But you have
your life; enjoy it
the way you enjoy
the music on your head-
set during the long air-
plane flight, the way
that you enjoyed holding
her when you could hold
her at the sink, but you have
all of this air now, to breathe,
so breathe it, enjoy it,
deeply, the love of knowing
it keeps you alive
until the next little death.
by Ron Riekki
Ron Riekki is a poet, playright and novelist. He lives in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. His plays have been produced in the Upper Peninsula and Chicago. He is the editor of a collection of works by yoopers titled “The Way North”. The poem “After They Leave” first appeared in “The Way North”. The book is available from Wayne State University Press. Read more about the book here and read an interview with Riekki and author Debbie Diesen on her blog “Jumping the Candlestick“.
