in life’s calculus
the aggregation of loss is zero
the sum total of lost things is nought
get used to losing things
declares Elizabeth Bishop in One Art
for the art is in remembering
but there’s no joy in absences
nothing is lost without loss
a dead lover
haunts your dreams now
illness finally consumed him
secrets from beyond
tell nothing unknown
and not much that is
love remembered a one-way street
receding into the past
my twin perpetually grinning
in the mirror of our life
from conception face to face
until death foretold
at Drimfern Inveraray
eating gravel in his stoop
when his heart stopped
his barbour jacket with his smell
on its peg inside the door
my father face down
in the leaflitter of the gully at Maroota
the fall’s force puncturing his brain
news conveyed by phone
grief released
in that front paddock
of stripped oats at Gundaroo
revisiting David’s farm Gunnas Gunya
driving the dirt track through scrub
located by intuition rather than recollection
after this time deserted
his MG TC abandoned in the barn
that front paddock bare
not lost just misplaced