Our calendar entries have dwindled to a score
of random meetings that you cannot afford,
your memos congested with customers’ calls.

First went our breakfasts in the afterglow
of executive schedules that made my cereal bowl
bereft of yours in an excessive lack of decorum.

Then went our lunch-hours, the much-awaited-for.
The pigeons in the park yearn for crumbs and corn
delivered by hands, so difficult to disentangle before.

My evenings are haunted by nostalgic thoughts
for departed intellectual and visual joys,
for competitive Scrabble, for movies’ euphorias.

I anticipate more omissions to follow,
the script of our life to run out of color,
for more ellipses to connote what is hollow.