I confess I’ve been keeping an Excel file
of all that is mine and all that is hers. Pine
end table, shower curtain, lampshade,
frying pan, colander, wardrobe, thesaurus.
Mine
hers
mine
mine
hers
hers
mine
respectively.
I am not thinking of separation, only
keeping track; in truth such attention
lets me love her more clearly. I see her
more truly and everywhere now, her face
in the glass door of the plate cabinet (mine),
T.V. screen (hers), leaning out a window (either way).
Something so clean
in the meeting of possessions.
Her rug at the edge of my desk.
Every day I extract
my wristwatch from her drawer
and replace it like an offering.
On Tuesday I measured
the exact midpoint of our couch.
I’ve kept every receipt; an act
of devotion; paper remembers
what we can’t.
September fourteenth
nineteen eighty one
$6.83 on tumblers from Lewis & Co.,
eighteen months and two days
after four dollar curries, our first kiss—
thirty something seconds in a doorway.
In seven years she has broken only one.
Now it is my turn, after dinner it slips
newly rinsed from my hands
to her birch floors.
As if to prove a point
she bends, slices her thumb.
Beautiful platelets,
her blood on that glass.
Third Place (tied)
Hart House Poetry Contest