Empty Coat Hangers

They hang there
heads drooping
naked skeletons

I gave away your shirts
The jeans I ordered for you
from England
fit my brother

You’re gone

But last night
I heard you
in the wardrobe

Empty coat hangers
swinging around 10 pm
doing your dance

Did you notice
I left some
of your favourites

The one that reads
Last Clean Shirt
and your most
comfortable shoes

Disturbed from dreaming
I woke excited
thinking you had returned

But what were you doing
shaking your booty
at 10 pm rattling
the empty coat hangers

This morning on GeoNet
3.9 south west of French Pass
shaking at 9.55 pm

I thought it was you
doing your dance
coming back to me

It was only
a silly earthquake

Joy Sharp

Joy Sharp was born in Hamilton and now lives in Nelson where she spent seven blissfully happy years with her husband Iain, before his death early this year from blood cancer. She has an MA (hons) University of Auckland where she was a graduate of the Creative Writing programme. Her chapter on Meg and Alistair Campbell in Between the Lives: Partners in Art arose from her Masters thesis on Meg’s poetry, and she wrote the introduction to the Campbells’ last published collection: It’s Love Isn’t It? The Love Poems. Joy is a past winner of the Whitireia Pietry Competition, the Sunday Star Times Short Story Contest, and the Lilian Ida Smith Award. She was also highly commended in the BNZ Katherine Mansfield Short Story Competition.