Brian Evans-Jones

To a Guest Who Will Not Now Arrive

There are fresh sheets on the bed
but you will never slide between them.
The tumble dryer grumbles as usual
through the living room floor, but not
with your clothes.
Your eyes will remain unastonished
by the driveway sewn with ice at dawn.
The snow sinks, releasing the trapped crowns
of the baby fir one by one,
and you are far from here.

You will not come.
No more will Christmas, Easter;
my daughter will never menstruate or get married,
my parents will always live
in the home of my childhood—
I will never lose anyone. 

Our pair of doves still coos
but not for you.
The floor round your bed has been vacuumed;
nothing stops it shining.

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Brian Evans-Jones is a poet and teacher from Britain, now living in New Hampshire. His poems are published or forthcoming in The Inflectionist Review, Cloudbank, The Café Review, Biscuit Hill and other journals. He won the 2017 Maureen Egan Award from Poets & Writers and was Poet Laureate of Hampshire, UK, in 2012-13.