Weaning, at Any Age

That moment. A car slides away,
turns the corner and disappears.
In it my son. And he is gone.

My daughter, who was here,
—what, a minute ago—
is now, merged somewhere

among others on a bus,
as the doors with a soft exhalation
ease shut.

Or just that they cannot keep waving
and walking backward—they turn, must turn
and face another kind of day.

And hollow with a hunger
such as I’ve never known,
all of me, heavy with a weight

I cannot name, am slumped
in the place where we’d released
each other

though the clutching heart flies after.
Oh! It hearkens after.
And there’s the moment too

when those whom now I watch,
are standing, holding themselves,
just themselves, until a car is lost

in traffic. And finally giving in, turn
and return; past the scent of daphne,
the red gravel crunching underfoot,

accepting with the breath
it is this space
which makes each day new,

this absence we share like an embrace.

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