The Other Life

The life you wish you had lived
inhabits the lavender scarf 
you lift now and then
  
from the dresser drawer. 
Like perfume, it invades 
every room in your house 
  
with possibilities 
until your body is filled—
that body 
  
anyone can touch. 
It holds on tight 
the way on an autumn afternoon
  
the fig tree loses 
only its leaves and not
the fruits that have turned 
  
in on themselves
like tiny fists. 
Must you give up 
  
this life, whose doors 
you have dreamed open? 
Though you have parted
  
its curtains, worn
its moonlit glow?
Haven't you earned 
  
this grief that makes you
unable to breathe 
anything else? 
  
These are the days you linger
at the dinner table eating 
nothing, the other life 
  
wanting you only 
to want it, 
to keep it known, 
  
an initialed handkerchief 
without an owner. 
It is palpable 
  
as that tiny mahogany chest
made to hold letters 
you wish you'd received, 
  
or that diary whose empty pages
have already yellowed. 
Or your heart which beats 
  
only in the other life, the life 
you covet and protect, 
the one you invent and invent 
  
because it invents you back.