Begin with unpacking
the loss of years.
Perhaps, for once,
Win the battle with tears.
Start over clean, new.
Carry emptied, broken down boxes,
bundled and tied, sticky at the edges
with their old used tape, to the curb.
Balanced no longer on narrow ledges.
Breathe now, once again.
Don’t know what to do
when I dream of you.
Waking, I want to drench
my brain in pure bleach,
soaking it through,
until all the colors of you
out of my soul leach
and no longer do I miss you.
Don’t. Don’t tell me to pray.
For years, I have every day.
All that I am I’ve offered as a prayer.
Every breath. Every bite of food.
Every step. Counting pennies,
Dollars. It’s all the same.
I’ve whispered, I’ve mumbled,
I’ve chanted, I’ve silently said
All my prayers for you, for myself,
For my dog, for my daughter,
For my grandchildren yet unborn,
For the world that couldn’t give a damn.
Yes, I’ve fucking prayed for us all.
I’ve prayed while driving
With each rotation of the tires.
I’ve prayed oceans of prayers.
Prayed from here to there
In lines of crispy breadcrumb trails
Eaten by the birds for whom,
Yes, I’ve prayed too.
So, what more am I to do?
I’ve prayed in churches, in houses,
In an apartment, along the nature paths,
On walks, on runs. I’ve prayed.
I prayed in the sun, the rain,
I screamed at God during a thunderstorm,
When thunder drowned my screams
And lightning did threaten
To shut my damn mouth.
Yet I prayed. And still even in this,
I do pray with these words
Though they’ve earned no answer
Yet, so don’t entreat me to pray
This damn pandemic away.
I still do pray in every single way,
So just—don’t.
Sleeplessness always told the story
between the back when and now,
what she once thought a game,
tracks leading nowhere.
This last section of living
something not well lived.
A swirl of memory
piercing through knots
too tight to be undone.
She had lived without a plan,
having a heart that spoke in tongues
she had yet to understand.
Harmony never made sense to me
And neither did melody.
Can’t tell the difference, you see.
No talent with any instrument.
A singing voice that’d send me
To some lower level of hell.
Well, I’d never play Orpheus,
That’s for sure.
And no matter what you may think,
You ain’t some worthy Eurydice.
In breaking silence,
earth and sky kiss again.
At a toast of mid-day,
the moon shows her face,
a smile of grace.
In the glimmer of a star’s dance,
a thorn on dried roses prick,
a reminder of circumstance.
Walk to the end of dark uncurling days
at the edge of the earth,
witness it split open
flowering,
beautiful.
I’d give it to you
could it be contained
boxed, bottled,
held within my hands,
weak as they are,
that cannot hold
such flowering strength.
Use a tuning fork,
Fine tune this old tone-deaf heart.
I drift
Drift in purpose, direction,
Resolve in question.
Telling myself on repeat
I’ve no need, no want
Of soft skin against mine.
To feel another’s heart beat
Against my chest.
Though I remember,
Though I can still imagine,
When I close my eyes
What it is
To close my hand round the soft hand of another,
To fall asleep embracing—entwined, entangled,
To wake and smell sleep warmed skin,
To touch and take and give and kiss
Before coffee should touch my lips.
Such hunger is not a thing I allow myself to taste,
The risk too rich, too great to let it touch upon the tongue.
I am not young enough for a taste of what
Should bring me to my knees—
Of what I imagine
That she’d taste like memory.
Early mornings I walk my dog.
What a pair, what a sight we must make
in the early dawn light.
She, with her little legs flying,
her little French Bulldog smile–
Then me with my crazy, curly, too early,
morning hair and not enough coffee yet face.
As the cool sun, rising, greets
us with a loving grace,
no one would know
how my little dog schools me in life.
in her jaunty little prance,
in her little smiling face, looking up at me,
her joy, her pure delight
in the movement of her body,
in the scent of morning in the air,
in the gentle quiet of dawn upon us–
It is the moment,
Purely, simply–
The moment
Of being–
Dedicated to A.
Writer, Tutor and Editor
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