after you had gone,
after all
the words were said that bound
our lives together for the space
of understanding,
I found
my room a larger place.
the wall
windowed to a view
upon another’s need, and all
the silence filled with sound
of others’ living, the new
(read-me, read-me) books seemed old
as yesterday, and my door somehow
would not tightly close.
so cataclysmic just your word?
how should it be
my friend, if every day
i listened with the heart
to what until you came
i merely overheard?
Mary Catherine Vukmanic