what you called that yearning

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil 

    probably fell down there. 

And the Drano won't work but smells dangerous, and the crusty 

    dishes have piled up 

 

waiting for the plumber I still haven't called. This is the everyday 

    we spoke of. 

It's winter again: the sky's a deep headstrong blue, and the sunlight 

    pours through 

 

the open living room windows because the heat's on too high in 

    here, and I can't turn it off. 

For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the 

    street, the bag breaking, 

 

I've been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, 

    hurrying along those 

wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee 

    down
my wrist and sleeve, 

 

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This 

    is it. 

Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called 

    that yearning. 

 

What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the 

    winter to pass. We want 

whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss—we want more and 

    more and then more of it. 

 

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself 

    in the window glass, 

say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a 

    cherishing so deep 

 

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that 

    I'm speechless: 

I am living, I remember you. 

 

[Marie Howe {1950- } 'What the Living Do', from The Mind has Cliffs of Fall: Poems at the extremes of feeling]