Periodic Table of Ethereal Elements

-for Harry Ford

I was not ready for your form to be cold
Ever. Even in life

You did not inhabit, necessarily, a form,
But a mind of

Rarer liquid element. It had not occurred to me
You would take

Leave and it will be winter from now on, not only
Here, in the ordinary,

But there too, in the extraordinary elegance
Of calcium and finery

And loss. Keep me

Tethered here, breathtakingly awkward and alive.

If you had a psyche it was not known to me.

If you had a figure it would be heavy ivory.
If you were a man, you would be

An autumn of black carriages filled red with leaves
From sycamore trees,

Not scattering. I was not ready for such
Earthward and unease.

Goodbye to the imperium, the rinsing wind. You, cold
As God and the great

Glassed castle in which Ive lived, simply
Now a house.

A girl ago, a girlhood gone like a phial of ether
Thrown on fire-just

A little jump of flame, like grief, or,

Like a penicillin that has lost its will for killing
Off, it then is gone.