Knowing You're Gone

by Sandra Kohler


I go out on this cold brilliantly sunny
March afternoon to try to take my
power walk, a walk I haven't done
since your death two weeks ago.

The sun's brutal, its light not revelation
but obstruction, shutting down my eyes
in a manner which seems to echo the way
my climbing legs feel, awkward, unsure.

On the long steep hill up Tremlett Street
I feel my breath giving out, I'm afraid
my legs will fail me. Half the way up,
I stop, turn around, turn back, start

down again. I talk to the stone lion on
the porch of a house on Waldeck Street,
I mutter at the ugly yellow color of
the corner home of neighbors who

used to be friends and aren't. When
I get back to our house and go inside,
I expect to find you there, expect
to tell you all of the details, share

that walk with you. You're not here.
You won't ever be here again. I learn
my loneliness, my loss of all that
we used to share, again and again.


* * * * *

Sandra Kohler’s third collection of poems, Improbable Music (Word Press). appeared in May, 2011. Earlier collections are The Country of Women (Calyx, 1995) and The Ceremonies of Longing (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003). Her poems have appeared in journals, including The Beloit Poetry Journal, Prairie Schooner, and many others over the past 45 years. In 2018, a poem of hers was chosen to be part of Jenny Holzer’s permanent installation at the Comcast Technology Center in Philadelphia.