When I have not troubled to turn on any of the three bedroom lamps

And the shoe is black

And not recently polished so as to send my way

Some of the light that

Has slipped the double curtains

Into our room

To escape the winter dusk

And we are due to dinner with old friends in exactly

The half hour it will take

To sprint and speed and park and sprint

To the restaurant where

They will announce a divorce

And we will end the evening, us two,

Having parted from them with all assurances,

In a silent walk, like from a burial,

Ashamed of our luck

This cannot be done with one shoe

Nor two shoes that do not match

That is rude

And so

As if looking for my other shoe under our bed

And pawing and blaming and with no sense

That is how I look for ways

To write about death

January 2021

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