Mudhill – as part of the Fading Spaces Project

Don’t teach me
while I get home from work
while I put the kettle on
while I feed the cats
(one of them has been on medication for a week, because his stomach is too acidic, he swallows with difficulty
and throws it back up)
while I water the rooftop garden
you built for me as a gift of love
yet now it is my white trousers that get dirty from the hose
but I watch the lotuses (which, I know, are lilies), because I said they are living symbols
of our renewing relationship
(while they grow slowly)
while I choose a late-night art film on public TV
while it gets dark
while I don’t turn on the light
while I move more and more boldly through the fading space of our shared life
while I have cheese and homegrown tomatoes for dinner,
I can’t shake the thought
that with the same passion,
at the same angle,
with the same desire,
you are boring yourself into her
as you once did into me.
“don’t teach me how to live without you,” said a lover abandoned at breakup,
and I have now been living without you for five months.