the one left

Last night I had dinner with loneliness
She (yes, loneliness is female!) sat across from me,
in the chair that now misses your warmth.
I guess out of politeness and understanding
she was silent for the most part and did nothing
but intently watch me cut up the steak into pieces
absent-mindedly and slowly (there was no reason to hurry),
bring bits to my mouth and chew carefully
relishing the absence of life in each morsel.
I largely kept quiet too--for what was I to say to her?
Unlike uncertain lovers we no longer require words
to fill in the blanks in our togetherness
And I know she understood how I felt anyway
She knows herself too well.
There were questions that tempted me though:
Has she always been with me? Is she here to stay?
I was dying to ask but didn't dare for
the answers might be simple, fateful, and true.
I was thinking too that she should be capable
of multiplying herself and simultaneously be at different places
For surely I'm not the only one who's learning
to live with the fact of empty chairs and long silent meals,
to endure and to make conversation with
the only one that's left and comes near.

8 February 2010
Leuven, Belgium