How you can love a place for what it is, even though
it cannot give you the one thing you really want.
How the six Tibetan warrior figures
hard-carved from a traditional marriage bed
almost had me, but I couldn’t get over the irony.
How a place so supposedly haunted
can surprise you by hiding her ghosts away.
How the Ohio children in the hotel lobby make you feel
simultaneously grateful and slightly bereft.
How the impending rain’s scout clouds
made today a temperate but brooding day to walk
and I was loathe to go in.
How everything goes on in your absence
when it would be so nice to know yourself missed.
How everywhere the dogs–so well-adjusted to strangers–
make you realize the only hole created by your absence is inside you.
