SIGNS

Moving slowly as the hour hand

on the antique grandfather clock,

two weeks have passed since his

late wife’s memorial service.

Her house shoes are still shoved

slightly beneath the side of the bed

she always slept on, ready

for her feet.  Her clothes still hang

in the closet, saturate with her scent.

Though she’s gone, he sees and senses

the signs of her presence everywhere,

strangely more palpable than his own.

The morning sun hurls its buckets

of light through the windows,

brash and indifferent as always.

Larry D. Thomas, a member of the Texas Institute of Letters, was the 2008 Texas Poet Laureate.  He has published eighteen collections of poems, most recently A Murder of Crows (Virtual Artists Collective, 2011).  His New and Selected Poems was long-listed for the National Book Award.