Presence

a found poem: Virginia Woolf’s The Waves

He is gone. The fine filament
that spun between us

is darkened now. How strange
this moment. How alien.

He is returning to the world—
to that comfortable

simplicity—and I stand
in the lengthening flocking dark.

Spirits and familiars
are in the corners and the air

is mocking. I feel old.
I feel shabby. Who am I now?

My love took refuge
from me.