Ghost
I read there is a name for it,
this absence, this expanse,
this frozen place. There
is a name for it – they
call it ambiguous loss. Words
that carry the weight of years
of observation, trials and texts,
a term for missing the one you love,
even while they are with you,
when the future is bruised
by illness and what’s now is far
away from what might have been.
Ambiguous loss. But I would
prefer to say that I am haunted
by the ghost of your motion,
the flow of you, as you walked
through our kitchen on any afternoon,
or how, pushing your hair back
you leant across me,
the world lit in your eyes.
Alex Reed is a family therapist and is interested in Zen Buddhism and poetry. In his poetry he often reflects on experiences of illness, transitoriness and loss.