by Alexander Hurla
I slept on the hardwood floor last night
in this house that should have been ours.
I hugged my knees the whole time and shivered
because the bed we shared is ninety miles away,
and a sleeping bag can’t replace you.
The only woman in the house now sits on the mantle—
a statue of the Virgin Mary holding her hands wide
for a would-be hug she’ll never give to me.
Her eyes don’t glow in the lamplight like yours did,
and her stony heart doesn’t beat in the silence.
I told myself the last poem I wrote about you
would be the last poem I wrote about you,
but this empty room makes my mind wander back
to the house we built together in our dreams—
and Mother Mary won’t even look at me.
Look! There’s the kitchen where you would’ve made dinner,
and the backyard where our kids would have played tag,
and the shop where I would’ve built you that birdhouse—
or maybe none of that would’ve happened at all.
You used to tell me I dream too much.
Maybe the you I thought was you wasn’t really you at all.
Maybe I built a fantasy that was nothing more than stone.
Or could it be her—whoever she is—I hear when I close my eyes?
Is it her laugh and her singing and even her crying I hear?
Or is it just the wind like it is every other time?
But I have to believe she’s real—real flesh and blood—
and that she’ll want babies and cows and my love
in a life full of memories you and I were meant to share.
Because if she’s not, then it’s just me and this statue,
and I miss the warmth of a wife’s embrace.