FEELING THE EMPTY

Poem for Today - September 9, 2014

THE EMPTY HOUSE

Then, when the child was gone,
I was alone

In the house, suddenly grown huge.
Each noise

Explained itself away

As bird, or creaking board, or mouse,

Element or animal.

But mostly there was quiet as after battle

Where round the room still lay

The soldiers and the paintbox and the toys.
But when I went to tidy these away,
I felt my mind swerve:

My body was the house,

And everything he’d touched, and exposed nerve.

© Stephen Spender

The New Yorker Book

of Poems, page 192