“loss of someone you only know because they are married to someone you work with”

It isn’t quite grief, or it isn’t the same—  
A name recalled over stale office coffee,  
Joining conversations not yours to claim,  
Yet leaving an ache oddly weighty.

You met her once, twice, at some work summer party,  
Paper plate, laughter, her hand on his arm—  
Her mention would flicker through Monday reports,  
A gentle ghost, familiar and warm.

Then word passes quietly between the cubicles:  
She’s gone. He’ll be out for a while.  
Her absence, abstract, becomes unignorable—  
Vacancy dwelling behind every file.

You feel for your colleague—his circle collapsed,  
His stories now shadows and pause.  
But you also sense edges of emptiness wrap  
About memories barely because

Her life was tangential to your daily routines,  
But more than a footnote, somehow.  
Loss ripples outward from roots unforeseen—  
You carry her absence now.

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