After you
have boarded the train 
(destination: gone)
and vanished like a breath of smoke
in thick afternoon air

after a world of brick
falls back into place around me
piece by piece while I stand in numbness

and after aimless walk on crooked
streets through infinity and back
has soothed the first shock of amputation
...

I make my way back home
("home"! - a now deserted place,
a bivouac from last year,
an empty shell, a desiccated spring)
where I
wash our dishes clean floor and bathroom make beds empty ashtrays
swallow the last half-glass of beer we left
- placebo medicine for you are gone - 
erase the traces of our lives entwined

and then
I take my barren heart and all its tendrils
wrap it in cloth and all the souvenirs,
the time we lived, we spent, we 
breathed in and out and in
love
all I feel
all of this I 

lock in a wooden chest
(to keep it safe)
and then I go about my daily business
unburdened yet
ever so slightly cold
(and loneliness
a raging sea ignored under ice)

every now and then I shake the chest
listening in fear, my ear pressed to its side
- are you still alive in there?