For you, wherever you are
I hoped you weren’t afraid
When you were cast out into unconsciousness
Like a satellite knocked off its course
(We all have to be eventually)
❧
I hope gravity pulled you to a gilded gate
I hope that you weren’t as afraid
As I am when I catch myself waning
Under fine aged compulsions
Drink from the bottle ‘til it’s empty
Carved yet another bloodied tally
❧
Haven’t crossed the line to your bedroom
Where the bed touched most every wall
Still chrysalis in dusty pink silk
Pills next to analog clocks
Medical bullshit on the bedside
Morphine next to full water jugs
Next to incoherent notes scribbled
Written only a week before
Nonverbal – didn’t know if you could hear at all
Smaller than an acorn
released from the largest oak tree crown
Thinner than the baldest branch in winter
Hair softer than the softest down
❧
Wednesday night
Mark the day
Anticipate rising to drop
The sun arches over
Pull your limbs up like roots
That had you bound to soil
That wouldn’t nourish
Now heaving with tumour
Gunpowder used up
Just a shell of the bullet
I’d blown the dust off of your cut glass collection
And in all this time, it still hasn’t settled
You’d said to me
“I’m gonna beat this”
With such stubborn will
That when I looked at you
You only saw you
Back in the reflection
I held your hand in mine
Cause I would choke if I spoke
And If I choked you would know
so I didn’t
And so
❧
Now people who had no reason to speak to me tell me they’re sorry
You’re gone
I’ll never see you again
And that’s just how it is
On Losing grandparents
Can I say words at random
Like daisy chains or boughed path
The spongy split of river logs
The hospital bed whirring to rise
The drip – drip – drip – of fluids in vein
The lovers in the yellow glow of their date
❧
Can I say words that don’t make a difference?
Like Birthday cards or bald street dogs
The red rising of pheasants from the tree
The quiet passing of days and months
The chaotic flurry-swarm of disrupted moths
The dead promise of possibly, maybe
White, electric chemotherapy
❧
Can I say words that make me sad?
Like the slackening of skin on dove bones
The solid lakes that bed rest the swan
The heavy sky dropping penny sized rain
The childhood song Alzheimer’s forgot
I missed you before you were gone
Spring cleaning
The palest stems of wax that’s dripped
On the tops of yellow radiators
❧
Dusted collections of crystal glass
Packed up in paper and boxes
❧
Black mildew-freckled curtains
Are lifted from their hooks
❧
Super-market flowers wilt
Before they start to bloom
❧
The cordless vacuum huffs
Uproots the trodden carpet
❧
They take pictures of the hallowed-out rooms
We make it home ‘fore Spring has ended
Photo by Mateus Campos Felipe on Unsplash
