Tom Mallouk writes touchingly of a deceased friend and the small bit of impermanence that remains.
—
Your Voice
I don’t know how to feel about your voice
still on the answering machine. That moment
of dislocation, could I have dreamt these last
months, is a reprieve, your ghost reassuring me
I’ll hear from you soon. Then walking
into grief’s clear glass patio door.
Were the message changed, you’d be silenced
forever and I would not be able to call you
when no one is home: this strange power
to keep you vivid, to not let time diminish
you, to not let go. When your wife changes
it, as she must, I hope I will have learned
the lesson of losing you – to welcome
your haunting, to love my life more.
***
Interested in submitting poetry to The Good Men Project? Check out our guidelines.
Like The Good Men Project on Facebook
Photo by jypsygen /Flickr
Nice work Tom.
One of my favorite poems.
xoxoEliza
Congrats, Tommy…
perfect