wallowing in your ghost

    by Timothy Hatch

that first night without you, i couldn’t

deal with the cold so i put on

the sweater you claimed as yours

when we were younger.  i wasn’t ready

for the perfume of your body

and the loneliness kicked in, and as i sank

in our couch, i pulled you over

my head, wallowing in your ghost.

i wore the sweater for a year

but it smells like me now, no longer

a relic.

the cold outside is sharp,

but vital, and the cherry trees

are in bloom, so i'm leaving it by the door.

© 2014  Timothy Hatch

Timothy Hatch has been making things up for as long as he can remember.  He is currently enrolled in the creative writing program at Cal State San Bernardino.  His poems have been published in MungBeing and Creepy Gnome Magazine.  He lives in Ontario, California with his wife, Annette, and his impossibly destructive Queensland Heeler, Sydney.