Elsewhere

A late-night parking lot: The stir
  of rain slants through subdued elms, shoaled
sodium lamplight, and a parked car
  to the patched asphalt where roiled
  water, assembled, pooled, and rilled,
wanders downstream, leaving a few
  stray leaves behind on the windshield.
That’s how I miss you when you go.

Canyon: Baked rock. Cicadas chirr
  and tick and stop. On sandstone paled
by sun, a lizard with a stare
  pumps short push-ups over scald.
  Safe? So. It skinks down, through crack-held
thorn-scrub, to hunt ants. In the now,
  the age of glare-parched day is old.
That’s how I miss you when you go.

A busy downtown used bookstore/
  café: A patio table, railed
off from the sidewalk, waits for scour-
  ing by the bus-boy -- cups, congealed
  dregs, the remains of pastry. Held
by a sweating glass, a tip flaps through
  the breeze. The other tables are filled.
That’s how I miss you when you go.

  Dearest, you wondered how I hold
up when, in the course of business, you
  leave me with house empty and dulled.
That’s how. I miss you when you go.

—October 2002

---L.