For three days following her funeral
I have been desperate to be home
overanxious to putter in my own kitchen
to doze off in my own bed

Now the day to leave has come
My back clings to this mattress
stretching out the minutes
If we don’t rise, we won’t have to go

Her reflection fades already
in the transformation of this place
as we sort her things
deciding their fate

This house will not be hers again
nor frame her presence for us
Departing requires that someday
we come back to her absence

*My Gay Old Soulmate’s mother (my mother-in-law) died in mid-March. We had been gone from our home for a month and a half on various aspects of family business when she died.  An amazing woman, she had prepared us well and she was ready to make the transition from life and flesh. In multiple respects, we were ready to go.  But the reality that she is no longer there will come home to us for a long time.  I wrote the words above on the day we left her home in Kansas to return to ours in Philadelphia.