Six weeks

We had six weeks to lose you:
to spread out photographs and videos
from family trips, to blanket you
under the familiar weight of memory.
Six weeks to move through the house with you,
hold your possessions in our hands
and still feel the warmth left by your touch,
to travel hallways to the room
where we nestled you in bed
and blushed warmth into your cheeks --
prepared you to welcome others
to lose you.
They left memories
on your bedcovers like coats
from dinner-party guests:
heaped, weighted and warm.

When the breath left you and dissipated
into bedroom air, we bundled
these layers of fabric, piled them
throughout our house as coats against cold
when we needed to feel warm
in the cold and the still of your absence.