The Earth Turns South/Her Room

by Clement Richardson Wood

HER ROOM

She is away, but everywhere I look
Her traces linger;
The casual piling there of book on book,
With careful finger;

The marshaled flower-pots that blurred and changed
The view of the alley;
The picture righted, cushions disarranged
Artistically;

My careless pipes and ash-trays whipped into line,
Painfully dusted;
A handkerchief—its scent sways me like wine;
A hat-pin rusted,

A dozen vagrant hair-pins, and a veil
Sprinkling the table;
A crumpled ribbon, eager to tell its tale—
Would it were able!

And always a vague something in the air,
A keen reminder
Of her dear intimate self, that everywhere
Bids me go find her. . . .

She is away, but her room throbs and teems
In incompleteness,
Flooding me with intense, imperative dreams
Of her full sweetness.