Loss as a gravedigger

Employee of Loss

Every night, to rest I seek distraction from you in my thoughts.
The pain of loss is not a solvable fancy like others.
She is a gravedigger, smoking a cigarette, showing how
to relax. She says, "Because it takes time to dig this hole
it will take time to fill this hole."
And taking a puff she continues on her steady line of work,
while I watch behind an invisible rope.

Every morning, I wake in a panic as her shovel hits a nerve.
My brain fires images of our successes and of my failures.
But it is the disaster fantasies that ruin my constitution--
they consist of you in ways that are like
a surgery on my emotions without any anesthesia.
Even the false hope of things working or you here now
is simply the cruel grin moving time on her job.

It used to be that every night you gave me respite,
intangibly, as you slept through anything peaceably with a smile.
The world was so small then as I stared at you.
You, dear, are the source of great men's motivation--
the profound way you are able to comfort wounds,
the impossible lengths to which your devotion flows.
Sadly, this fortune was an addiction I could not appreciate
until I was in full withdrawal.

It used to be that every morning we woke to a curious fact--
that we were still together, thrilled to grasp desperately
at each other with our naked limbs and perhaps
seeking no other greater purpose.
Together we are a spectacle of the best things in life
and we can fuel each other to great heights.

Now, without your grace to guide me,
I have descended and walk shallow circles awake.
The gravedigger looks up from her post
and wishes she could point me in the right direction.