Today I just felt it for the first time Three months and one day after you died I realized that these photographs we have of you Are slowly replacing the subtle familiar Memory of what it's like to know you're in the other room To hear you singing on the stairs A movement, a pine cone, your squeaking chair The quiet untreasured In between times The actual experience of you here I can feel these memories escaping Colonized by photos narrowed down and told my mind erasing The echo of you in the house dies down October wind blows It makes a door close I look over my shoulder to make sure But there is nobody here I finally took out the upstairs bathroom garbage that was sitting there forgotten since you were here Wanting just to stay with us Just to stay living I threw it away Your dried out, bloody, end-of-life tissues Your toothbrush and your trash And the fly buzzing around the room Could that possibly be you too? I let it go out the window It does not feel good