Sweater

I wear your sweater often now, unwashedwith silver hair still clinging like tinsel,treating it like some holy thing in a wayyou would have hated given any choicein the matter, but you’ve been swept up,a leaf in the wind with no say in the finalsong being the birthday song in Farsion an iPhone, or the last word beingmy name for you calling back in free fall,with your hands suddenly cold and your breathtoo calm for this world full of so much living,you land unseen in a pile of otherpeople’s memories of who you were, asa child with a string of siblings beneathyou, as a young man in sharp uniform,as husband to a European bridewho would care for you the rest of your daysuntil you wondered where her husband wasand hoped he would be back soon to get her.

I wear this sweater and reach inside itspockets, half expecting to find a packof cigarettes, a lighter, a tissue,and find nothing but my own lint as I wearyour sweater in your chair on the decktrying to see palms trees as you would have,through smoke, music waltzing through you,sometimes through the lips you used to kissmy children on top of their heads, inhalingtheir laughter and letting it echo likemy voice, forever stuck in an emptypool in Tehran, seeing the persimmons,but unable to reach them without you.