“No, I don’t feel that he’s with me,” I say
although I’m winning at cards
and a warm breeze blows the hair
from my face. Though the cat who likes no one
sleeps in my lap and mosquitoes reject
my blood tonight. I play the winking Jack
of Spades and take the trick. The chair
is dead, the pillow, the Queen
of Hearts. He’s become an apocryphal man.
When I touch myself I cannot pretend.
The unfinished feeling
of a clock striking half past: I wait still
for that final chime, the hours counted
neatly in rhythm, leading somewhere.