My lover’s on a flight to walk the ruins
of a warmer place. I need time
to practice death, walk rooms, conjure
all the words I’m going to write
while he’s away. Outside, single
digits strain the house. This silence
is delicate and strange, only
interrupted by the popping rafters.
Sunrise through sliding doors,
my breath, a lifetime on the glass.
A bald eagle glides above the deck.
Days pass and poems do not land.
I think only of him, discover a nail-
clipping on our rug, gather body hair
from drains, pause and touch his boot-
print when I walk refrozen snow.
By week’s end I curl into his bed,
wrap legs around the husband pillow,
inhale relics left on fitted sheets.
Robert Carr is a Maine-based author of six collections of poetry, most recently Blue Memento (Lily Poetry Review Books 2025) and Phallus Sprouting Leaves, winner of the 2024 Rane Arroyo Chapbook Series (Seven Kitchens Press). Robert’s work has appeared in many journals and magazines including The Greensboro Review, The Massachusetts Review, and swamp pink. His collaborative response to the work of artist Kurt Reynolds, The Materials, is forthcoming (FriesenPress 2026).
Image: “The Cold House Cries” by Alex J. Tunney
Pine Hills Review 