Ken's Poetry

Only You

Only you can know what aching silence
fills the rooms his voice so often shook;
only you can know what cold emptiness
sits in his chair, rests his side of the bed;
or when the curtain strokes your cheek
how fond was his familiar touch;
how clothes still lingering in the laundry pile
awake a fragrance seeping from the house,
leaving frozen spaces
where once he warmed your day.

Only you can know
when you turn the pages of his books,
hold his old sweater to your face,
take his toothbrush from the bathroom shelf,
how much you feel,
how much you cannot yet.