The Dream of Nothing

All morning snow has heaped up against the two

Small lawn-level windows like the slow compulsion

To dream of nothing outside ourselves, the dream

Of zero which darkens those moments between sleep

And waking: not like forgetting, or even less

Some spent emotion, but so much more like a day

In September when the steam of summer rises

Off the wet roads in Tennessee, when the one

You love may no longer feel the need to say

Almost anything anymore . . . And in that moment

The mind gives in to an absence that's become

A kind of longing all its own, a desire

For something we can't quite touch, and never can

Conceal-as in these hours spent sitting

In the study, as in these words, made less

Of us than of winter and snow and nothingness.