a little day left

dear you,

for a long time, even after the door closed,
i left the hall light on.
i knew how much the wood would give in the wind,
how to put my palm against it
and feel the weather on the other side.

i used to think that if i understood
how a thing had happened
i could go back to being the person
it hadn’t happened to yet.
as though i could follow a split
back through the grain
to where the wood was whole.

there was one afternoon i remembered
for how much i’d laughed.
afterwards, i remembered it
for how little i’d known.
i think i’d like to have the laugh back.

there are things i’d do differently.
sometimes i was so sure the hurt would go
if i could get the words exactly right.
i kept talking long after
i’d stopped recognising my own voice.
i think i can be sorry for that
and still be glad i’ve gone.

today i closed the door myself.
i thought i might have to be angry
to get my hand to do it.
in the end i was thinking
how much i would miss the sound
of laughing in that room.
i closed it while i was still thinking that.

i did it gently, out of habit.
then i stood there with my hand at my side
and felt, for a moment, the small bewilderment
of having done what i said i would.
the wind had dropped.
i was still bracing against it.

there was good light in that room once.
i don’t always remember it
the way it was at the end.
sometimes the afternoon comes back
like warmth left in the grass,
with nothing wrong in it.

i’d spent so much of the year waiting
to find out how it would end.
outside, the wind had stripped the trees
on one side of the road.
on the other, the leaves still held.
i lifted my head into the cold.
for once, i knew what had happened
because i’d done it myself.

at my new job, i write down
the names i keep getting wrong.
by lunch there’s usually something
i want to get back to.
after all that time going over the past,
it feels good to be a beginner
at something i can get better at.

soon it’ll be dark when i leave work.
i’ll come home with my hands in my sleeves.
i’ll put my palm against the door
less often than i mean to notice.
spring will come unevenly.
one day i’ll realise
i know what the weather is doing
from having been out in it.