God Is in the Empty House

those three days while my husband
takes the kids to visit his mother.

And God is in other absences—the dishes
never quite finished, the landslide of laundry,

the loud fan my love keeps on all night
so he can rest.

Every few hours, he sends pictures:
my son beaming at the train museum,

the pottery my daughter found in the river.
The three of them, eating fries at a café.

And God is in the way I almost—almost—
wish that I was there,

and in the meal I prepare for one plate
in the humming quiet.

And God is in the evening walk, aimless
touching of stiltgrass and olive,

the sun that slowly vacates the forest—
leaves, then trunks, then lowest moss,

and no one, nothing,
calling me home.