Empty near haiku

She opens the door.
Silence. No dog to greet her.
He’s been gone three years.

She holds a wallet
sized picture, bent, creased faded.
It’s no one she knows.

He squinches his mouth
around his leaving. Swallows
the last bits of love.

The cabinets still full
of his favorite foods.
His toothbrush unused.

She searches her purse
for reading glasses. Return
address-no one known.

Pediatrician Kelley White has worked in inner city Philadelphia and rural New Hampshire. Her poems have appeared in Exquisite Corpse, Rattle and JAMA. Her recent books are TOXIC ENVIRONMENT (Boston Poet Press) and TWO BIRDS IN FLAME (Beech River Books.) She received a 2008 Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant.