19 Oct One year present

What does one year mean? One year means you can share a pillow but not your feelings. It means more make-up and higher heels. Numbness. That formal feeling Emily Dickinson describes:

After great pain a formal feeling comes–
The nerves sit ceremonious like tombs;
The stiff Heart questions–was it He that bore?
And yesterday–or centuries before?

The feet, mechanical, go round
A wooden way
Of ground, or air, or ought,
Regardless grown,
A quartz contentment, like a stone.

This is the hour of lead
Remembered if outlived,
As freezing persons recollect the snow–
First chill, then stupor, then the letting go.

This is the present: one year more seems to be one year less. One year, and you’re lost in your reflection, tapping your delicate reality to make sure it’s real.