Poet and nonfiction writer Linda Buckmaster lives in Belfast, a town of poets and artists. In these two brave poems she describes the sudden death of her husband, and his mysterious return.

Sudden Death

By Linda Buckmaster

You were an electric current leaping

between contact points, living always

so bright, so hot until

that moment

 

you shorted out, caught fire, and

bursting into white flames,

consumed yourself

in light and heat, leaving us

the still warm ashes of an afterlife.

 

 

January

The other night, I saw you

as moonlight coming in

the west window of the kitchen.

Fourteen years in this house and I never

before saw the moon coming in that particular window.

Perhaps it’s that we never stayed up so late,

at least not on bright nights in winter when

the low-slung moon moves around

the corner of the house and into the side yard. Or

perhaps it’s just that I never noticed before now. Now

 

I’m often up very late, alone,

so that night I saw you softly spreading

across the dark countertop and burnished surface

of the stove — a triangle of light — and

I lowered my face and kissed you.

Edited and Introduced by Wesley McNair, Maine Poet Laureate