A Poem for a Thursday #326

Somehow, I have forgotten to post for the last few weeks. Life has, as usual, been a little crazy but I don’t usually completely forget. And, here it is, almost 9:00 and I only just remembered. Anyway, here is a poem for you. I hope you enjoy it.

I want you and you are not here. I pause
in this garden, breathing the colour thought is
before language into still air. Even your name
is a pale ghost and, though I exhale it again
and again, it will not stay with me. Tonight
I make you up, imagine you, your movements clearer
than the words I have you say you said before.

Wherever you are now, inside my head you fix me
with a look, standing here whilst cool late light
dissolves into the earth. I have got your mouth wrong,
but still it smiles. I hold you closer, miles away,
inventing love, until the calls of nightjars
interrupt and turn what was to come, was certain,
into memory. The stars are filming us for no one.

Miles Away
Carol Ann Duffy