Of a Certain Friendship

Odd how you entered my house quietly,
Quietly left again.
While you stayed you ate at my table,
Slept in my bed.
There was much sweetness,
Yet little was done, little said.
After you left there was pain,
Now there is no more pain.

But the door of a certain room in my house
Will be always shut.
Your fork, your plate, the glass you drank from,
The music you played,
Are in that room
With the pillow where last your head was laid.
And there is one place in my garden
Where it’s best that I set no foot.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on June 5, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

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“Of a Certain Friendship” appeared in On a Grey Thread (Will Ransom, 1923).