Vacuum

Suitcases unloaded,

daffodils and lilies inhaled,

I picked up your letter.

And I was there –

as you directed the movers,

groomed the bonsai,

swept the floors;

as you selected the Asian pear from Chile,

placed cheddar in the mousetraps. 

And also, when the air vanished from the house.

For you, the breathlessness was a painful progression,

a mechanical or human lung

on crushing voyage through a black pit of sea.

For me, it was thermobaric:

an empty closet pulled the oxygen from the house,

an Amichai poem landed the devastating blast.

And you,

my breath,

gone.

8 May

Nowhere