Meditation on eX

I don’t like calling you that. 
So I “forget” sometimes.
Or assume people will know what I mean. 

Something about that letter,
that sound in my mouth,
the way that phrase - “my ex” -

is casually thrown around, 
makes it seem final and broken -
which it is -

but also like you’re so firmly 
in the past -
which you’re not.

It has the sound of a fling,
like it could have been anything,
not the man who formed a decade of me. 

There are no children or shared pets
or phone calls
to connect you to this new life,

so I bring you up in conversation,
to keep your name alive,
as a piece of me, as one would 

for a spouse deceased,
and sometimes I still say my husband
instead of my ex,

a small token 
placed on the altar of forever
and in the ether of grief.