Losing you

the first bird that sings

it meant everything 

we lived our lives before that moment

i couldn’t bear to bring

to bear on anything

the force that would set things in motion

but the sky is the color of night

and the day holds the world in your shadow

and i could never find

a reason

to change

i thought that losing you

would be easy to do

i never thought that we would feel it

if only we were free

then everything would be

as if the pain never existed

but the sky is the color of night

and the day holds the world in your shadow

and you could never find

a reason

to change

And it doesn’t matter

No none of it matters

There is no forgiveness

But there’s no anger either

Just the sorrow that you lived

This way

So lay down beside her

Claim your piece of eternity

leave us this reminder

Now and ever after

You’ll be capable of loving someone freely

and the sky is the color you left her

and the day gave you back all your laughter

and you could never find

a reason 

to stay

14th anniversary letter

Your death preceded everything. The lives we thought we’d fashioned before were a nothing; a tile jangling as it separates from the floor, a hairline crack in a glass, water spooling slowly out on the table. We were meaningless, we were predeceased. That last Christmas, I brought you gifts bought with my first grown-up paycheck. I broke out in hives wondering if I'd make the flight. Joyful naïveté and shy pride as I presented you with Striped Cashmere Sweater, Leather Purse.

Items worn once then given away when you died. I was too hasty. I was bleary thought unwanting a future. I was deloved. I was devolved; motherless becoming child. Removed from homeplace. Not broken, but taken apart and welded back together ill-fittedly. A hall of doors with haunts behind them. Solid oak and hollow core. If I had the choice, I would have gone back and saved from the stack all the remainders of you that meant so little because you were so fresh. Your memory hung about like humidity in a sprawl of slack-jawed summer. Summer child, summerland, dull green leaves, summer friend. Thrum of cicadas, lush. Summersand, jumping out of our skin with excitement, we'd normally be. Summer love, that heady rush. That summer by the window with the guitar, watching tendrils of the weeping beech drifting above the driveway. You on the bed, eyes roaming. Summer hush.

Take me back there. If I'd known, I would have saved your crumpled up tissues, I would have worn the sweaters. Cherished the one-armed reading glasses instead of trashing them. I would have decorated myself with trinkets of you, a vagabond of grief. Put your clothes on top of my prone form and made a carapace, a nest. I always want to make a nest. I was the first bird, you know. Now I know what it means. Carapace, by the way, that’s a word I read in a book about ghosts, of which you are the most. The ghostess with the mostest. You would have found that funny, I think. I never know anymore.

Hey, that's no way to say goodbye. I'm so tired. I wish you were mine. I wish that I'd had any inkling of what was to come. There's a February day that shines like a beacon in my mind. Where we plowed the snow with our legs and downhill on Diversey to the lake, we found the sweetest little restaurant. House wine and a corner booth. It's since been bought three times. Sometimes I wonder if it ever existed in the first place, or if we stumbled upon it in a dream, like the wardrobe, the fur coats, the snow falling through the pines. If I were to go back there, I would never leave. I would, like an enchantress, stop the time from entering. Like the song, our personal belongings would intertwine (did you know, Leonard Cohen died?). The windows would frost gently over, the snows blow by and creep up to cover us. We'd be perfectly preserved to this day, eating and laughing, the little old man who served us, too. I tried to find out, you know, who he was, if he was still alive. Maybe he's with you.

Your pages are worn from many readings, yet in many ways, I’ve never gone back to the beginning. It seems now so present. Months and years of you ebb but now you’re reversing, hurtling back into that space which you always occupy but which without you lies quiet.

In the space, a voice is growing that wonders who I was (for isn't mother, in essence, always for you, not for her, but for other, for child, for upward chirping and lostness and kiss this please, no, not dada, you). You were the beginning, you were the everything, you were the end. A circle, your arms. We're here again, I'm afraid. I'm afraid we'll miss him. I'm afraid we won't. I'm mostly just lingering and longing and doubt. And sewn seeds of little ones, your thigh height, hand to hair (I imagine). A gesture of protection. I imagine you in the bathroom dusting your cheek with Maybelline blush. In a blue bathrobe and pink towel turban. In the garden, my embarrassment at your short running shorts. In the garden, laying bricks. Resurrecting a lost statue from the vines, your lotus flower floating on the surface of the water. In the garden, in the garden, in the garden. Wheelbarrow and rust. All the things we'll never remember that we've lost.

Mother, why did you leave us? How did you do this? Raise a child? Remain a self? I’m going through a sea change. Husband says I should pick the Pacific. I’ve always been reluctant to make waves. Apologetic, yet sneering at those who sorried overmuch. My regret was inside and afraid, and dirtier as such. Not wanting to bother others, not wanting to take up space or attract unwanted attention. Always saying the wrong thing, asking for not enough. Shame at breathing to expand, shame at being.

I'm breaking open. I guess it started to happen the moment he was born. The tide is coming in. I wish I were iridescent. I wish I were free enough to be anyone. To live in the world unleashed. There is a bitter regret at not having been able to be there with him. I wish I could go back to the beginning, re-live him without the fear. Mother is so simple to a child. On the other side, it is a fractured underland. I'm clawing my way back: new moon, new tears, new sky, new land. New words, new hands. New ways to understand the path we took to get where we are. Coming up for air. And feeling for the first time in a long time that maybe there is a path in front of us as well. That the world won't stop just because you did. That I won't stop just because you did. That we're different people. That I have the choices you had also, but didn't make. Looking at life head on sometimes drags me under, but at least I'm looking instead of hiding. At least I'm doing something about it. I'm not going to sit back in a lawn chair and wait for death to find me. I'll be standing at the ready, armed with my own scythe.

Spillable Items

Spillable items 

Wet shoes wet car two umbrellas curly hair 

human, in stop motion 

Slow lotion

Under the pavement 

Are buried tracks

Is wonder is the hope of frozen generations

Germinating in captivity 

In between, we jangle, are predeceased

We spatter 

Blossom rain, main sail, nascent birdings

Bone unfurling 

These are cherished 

offerings 

(but not all. you asked for all but we must preserve. ) we must reintegrate. we must remember. 

before the rains came

before you stopped 

before the rivulets

before the dams

before the damned

Barrel brave and candle flicker 

sick moon, waning swagger

sick moon, fallen gather 

sick moon, tiny monsoon 

And shatter

Degraded, incrementally 

Terrified and tender 

Coming slowly to understand something 

Never to know her 

Stop 

(Hands to ears)

We're here!

We’re here!

Burlap and baby hair

My god, all these years

Oh perfect preservation 

(and all things holy)

What I wouldn’t give for 

simple mercy