Stage Six

I do not want soup.  I do not want mittens.
I do not want to knock off early.  I do not want a matinee.
I do not want a Heywood-Wakefield bedside table,
green tea in a white mug, poems, pillows, linens.  
I do not want a hot toddy, a Quaalude, a quickie, a spree.

Certainly I am petulant.  I'll always be
the selfish younger sibling, though by the numbers
I've outgrown you.  But this head cold, cold snap, cold wind
stinging my eyes: why does it feel like grief?
Surely by now I have passed through all the stages.

I do not pick up the telephone to call you; 
I do not even remember your number.
I do not propose bargains: three days of hunger for a dream appearance, 
my right arm to change history.  I have given up
shaking my fist; I have given up needles.

Nor do I imagine you, from time to time,
at crucial junctures, borrowing a trumpet
and shouting down from heaven,
"Lima India Victor Echo" 
or "Foxtrot Alpha India Tango Hotel."

I could work myself up, drag out the pictures, remember your apartment 
when I went to choose your last outfit, that smell of live skin on red sweater, 
the half-full mug of coffee, the unfinished letter.
(I suppose by now the clothes we sent to the Salvation Army
have all been worn away, your last cup broken and swept up.)

But it's not a day for flowers: D/O/B, D/O/D, Christmas.
No one with your bone structure boarded the morning train.  
I had not imagined I would think of you today, 
try again to tell your story.  I am so tired of failing,
always telling my own instead, this fence of "I"s.

You are thoroughly gone, and comfort will come, 
as it does, quickly, unbidden: a phone call, a glass of water, 
the neighbor's comical dog. 
The world will have me again, 
and even grief 
will tatter, fray, crumble.