Marie Howe

The Last Time

The last time we had dinner together in a restaurant
with white tablecloths, he leaned forward

and took my two hands in his hands and said,
I'm going to die soon. I want you to know that.

And I said, I think I do know.
And he said, What surprises me is that you don't

And I said, I do. And he said, What?
And I said, Know that you're going to die.

And he said, No, I mean know that you are.

The Gate

I had no idea that the gate I would step through
to finally enter this world

would be the space my brother's body made. He was
a little taller than me: a young man

but grown, himself by then,
done at twenty-eight, having folded every sheet,

rinsed every glass he would ever rinse under the cold
and running water.

This is what you have been waiting for, he used to say to me.
And I'd say, What?

And he'd say, This -- holding up my cheese and mustard sandwich.
And I'd say, What?

And he'd say, This, sort of looking around.

What the Living Do

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil
      probably fell down there.
And the Drano won't work but smells dangerous, and the crusty
      dishes have piled up

waiting for the plumber I still haven't called. This is the everyday we
      spoke of.
It's winter again: the sky's a deep headstrong blue, and the sunlight
      pours through

the open living room windows because the heat's on too high in here,
      and I can't turn it off.
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street
      the bag breaking,

I've been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying
      along those
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my
      wrist and sleeve,

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush:
      This is it.
Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called
      that yearning.

What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter
      to pass. We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss -- we want more and more
      and then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in
      the window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a
      cherishing so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I'm
      speechless:
I am living, I remember you.

From the book, What the Living Do: Poems, by Marie Howe, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 1998.