Keeping Things Whole

By Mark Strand

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body’s been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

Grandmother

With you gone, I want to pull out all the things you ever gave me and place them around the house. I want to smell lilacs all day. Plant forget-me-nots. I want to study photo albums and memorize the contours of your face, the placement of your dimple, the austerity of your husband’s camera pose. I am afraid to leave home. Afraid to lose this grief, this memory, this knowing— this closeness to you.