On the day of your death...

                                             by Sandra Kohler


I vowed to live without you.
I found your documents hidden,
I wrote lists of what to do
with your clothes, your books,
your possessions; I remembered
your body making love to mine.
I made up a story about your
childhood and laughed at it.
I sang songs that we loved
to listen to; I wept.


* * * * *

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.