WATERMARK

Today, at the market, a middle-aged couple, squeezing
tomatoes. They remind me of you, one gaunt, grey,
with sharp cheekbones; the other large and reddish.

I remember you exiting the plane at the Missoula airport,
both in huge fur coats, New York queers and proud
of it. Christmas, and you two glittered and grinned

brighter than the trees. I wish I could tell you, again,
how you filled up my house with your games and quarrels,
and how I miss you now, all the empty corners. Every day

there is something I wish I could tell you. A woman
at my office has a Mariachi band made of stuffed frogs
and tin guitars. I am making a garden, dreaming

into spring, pale daffodils, crocus, orange columbine. 
The sunroom will have a heated floor of satillo tile.
I gave your buffalo robe to a Chickasaw poet, who one day

will give it to her daughter, and she to hers. I have tried
to put your things where they belong. The Hudson Bay painting
to a man who never loved a picture before. Your gold

LaBaron convertible to the artist who painted the woods
you went into, finally. Sometimes I look for you there. 
Are you where you belong?