I think always of you waiting
Though why this should be I don’t know
The strange vague esteem of the living
Imagining the dead have nothing more to do
Than hunger after their time on earth —
The kisses, the rifts, those indifferences, those whims —
All the range that once was feeling’s surfeit
That, memoried in the light of death, seems
Catherine Owen is the author of sixteen collections of poetry and prose, including Moving to Delilah.