The Christmas tree stand is dirty from the lot
where it was purchased under the freeway
                Not enough ornaments and
                too many lights

You’re gone in much the same way
Nothing spectacular
                polaroids have lost their stick
                stains on the rug
                the clock hands stuck back before daylight savings time,
                always an hour closer to the end than the rest of us

You kept asking, “What time is it?” as though time still applied to you

                 A pink velour jacket with a hole in the sleeve that two of us wrestle
                upon your stiffening body
               The botched nature of final wishes
                It won’t ever be anything more
                than this

Nowhere did anyone count
the number of times you told me
I didn’t love you
                or that my love saved you,
                again and again

No final tally, but they are over now and there is a number, even if I don’t know it

                 Number of times we walked to the grocery store,
                picked our lunches, ate together,
               while you asked me to tell you something
               intimate about my life,
               as though your life depended on it

What might be large enough to hold this lifetime of grief?
The sadness seems infinite and yet
something earthly could hold it
               Them.
               The tears.
               The Pacific Ocean.