The things that were here before you died and the things that have come after:

To the former belong, first of all, your clothes, the jewelry and the photographs and the name of the woman you were named after and who also died young... But also a couple receipts, the arrangement of a certain corner in the living room, a shirt you ironed for me and which I keep carefully under my pile of shirts, certain pieces of music, and the mangy dog that still stands around smiling stupidly, as though you were here.

To the latter belong my new fountain pen, a well-known perfume on the skin of a woman I hardly even know and the new light bulbs I put in the bedroom lamp by whose light I read about you in every book I try to read.

The former remind me that you were, the latter that you no longer are.

It is the near indistinguishableness I find hardest to bear.