After You've Gone

After you’ve gone,
who shall I have to cook for...
to hold the other end of the wish-bone...
chew over the fat with at dinner...

to argue black was white with –
to turn my most expensive shirt
into Joseph’s Technicolor Dream-coat...
albeit amazing...

to paint me pictures
of off-kilter rainbows...
to find my glasses, and car-keys,
to convince me that soufflés
taste better the less they rise?

You are part of every piece
of the patchwork of my life;
the thread its sewn with –
the cord – binds the seams...

and no...you’re right, of course,
as you always are – the clocks
won’t stop; telephones still persist
on ringing – time won’t cease
to exist...just march on, regardless –
but without any hands. Except

after you’ve gone,
who will I have
to fill my dreams with,
and who else would even think
of loving this ramshackle,
tumbledown shack of a man
you think I am.