this smoky image I have

I believe, but what is belief? 

I receive the forbidden dead.

They appear in the mirrors of asleep

To accuse or be comforted.

All the selves of myself they keep,

From a bodiless time arrive,

Retaining in face and shape

Shifting lineaments of alive.

So whatever it is you are,

Dear Anne, bent smilingly grave

Over wine glasses filled by your fire,

Is the whole of your life you gave

To our fictions of what you were.

Not a shadow of you can save

These logs that crackle with light,

Or this smoky image I have—

Your face at the foot of a flight

Of wrought-iron circular stairs.

I am climbing alone in the night

Among stabbing, unmerciful flares.

Oh, I am what I see and know,

But no other solid thing's there

Except for the terrible glow

Of your face and its quiet belief,

Light wood ash falling like snow

On my weaker grief.

[Anne Stevenson {1933-2020} 'Dreaming of the Dead', from The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief & Healing]