You left me alone at the card table;
Suddenly huge without my usual opponent
always “losing” to my delight.
The cards were too big -
I couldn’t shuffle them all by myself.
You left me with Mom in your old white pick-up
with the roll-up windows that used to make us laugh.
Your driving days over, our Wrigley’s was gone -
You hadn’t replaced the pack.
The sticks zigzagged like the grooves in the tires
that used to drive us to the candy mansion.
You left me with Kelsey, upstairs in your closet.
We stepped into the clothes that you no longer wore,
replaced by a sterile white robe.
It made your old, frail face even more strange to me.
We felt your pockets for candy that we knew wouldn’t be there.
You left me surrounded in the cemetery,
yet my loneliness was as bitter as the sharp wind that

whipped my cheeks.
Grandma’s eyes, flinty and defenseless.
I held the lump in my throat, the trigger to my tears,
through all the “I’m sorry’s.”
Formalities could never bring you back.
You left me.