A new book would be more satisfying. Pristine pages
where the dead and divorced are deleted.
Those who have fled and left no forwarding addresses.

One at a time and carelessly I delete them.
Months pass. I turn the pages looking for a phone number
and see on the facing page a name no longer extant

a once and faithful friend, a dear contemporary
whose address was amended many times
for change of circumstance. The phone ditto.

Now the book is so cross-hatched it looks
like an exercise in defence. Barbed wire
thrown up, dark obliterated trenches.

The unpartnered ones seem like half a house
but at least that’s better than a eulogy I heard
delivered by a dark-suited woman in spike heels

who fell through flailing images to locate
someone newly dead in metaphors and similes
of air, perfume, and hovering butterflies. At least

from the address book the names are honestly gone
and when you sight one through the crossings out
bold love and bolder details return your look

as if they peered out: names and addresses
hours of wine and conversations, their
world view which you made together

now utterly bequeathed to you.