Nothing I recognise .....and something good.

I'm standing in my bedroom

with two men

One of them know - 

he is the carpenter who built all the shelves

and the cupboards 

and the wardrobes in our other house

over the last 15 years.

He is measuring the space between the wall and the window 

with a long yellow flexible tape.

When we first met him he had dreadlocks and a shy smile.

Now he has teenage children and his name painted on the side of his van.

The other man, who works with him, I don't know. 

He's young and fitted with many silver earrings.

I must have mentioned Robin. That he died.

Is he your husband? he asks

Yes, for 30 years, I say.

He looks sad.

Sorry, he says.

I talk as if it happened to someone else.

In some ways it did.

I remember everything about her.

And everything about him.

I sleep in the same bed we bought together. 

The same framed print of Klimt's

The Kiss

hangs on the wall.

Like it did in all our houses.

But there is nothing I recognise about the life of the woman who

is talking fitted wardrobes 

in a double bedroom for one

that still smells of dog.

They advise against built in wardrobes anyway  - 

too costly they say,

doing themselves out of a job.

I let them out into a sunsetting sky

and give myself the job of 

setting a fire in the grate.

Something I do know how to do.

Something good to root me

 into my unfamiliar life.