Poetry: there is a hole at the heart of things

 

 

When it was over
we took a walk
in our matchings suits
one large
one small
to a hill by the house
where the lights of the city
spread beneath us
like an upended starscape

You were quiet
and still
as a lake in the mountains
Rain tumbled from
the sky
to drown in your eyes

and I charted circles
in my twice-worn shoes
heading nowhere
It was my job

to explain and
to soothe
to find sense
to create meaning

but all I could think of
was the moment
months earlier
when we first saw
the shape of what was
to come

“There is a hole
at the heart of things”
she said “It’s not pain or sorrow
fear or despair
It’s not anything at all
but an ending”

and I knew she was
talking about herself
but also about us
and time
and places
and people

how you’d clutch my hand
like it was a talisman

and the rain would fall
to the earth

and silence
would form between us

in the shape of a mother
lost but never gone

There is a hole at the heart of things
That’s how it all falls out