Void, by Gina Headden

Your empty rocking chair stands at the corner of the street when, back from hospital, I step off the bus, heading for home. Down the road, our bed lies in the gutter, blankets askew, dented pillows still smelling of you. Spoons and knives and forks fall like clattering rain onto the concrete pavement while tables, tablets, plants and chairs—all the worldly goods with which we endowed each other—scatter themselves about me. A terminal sigh escapes the house and, like Picasso’s Blue Nude, it turns from the world, folds inwards, succumbs to its emptiness now that you are gone.