Let us see the blaze
as little ants
watching dawn
from 'neath our little leaves.
⠀
Oh, how I have missed you.
⠀
Time has passed since I last saw you
as it is wont to do
and my, how you have grown!
You have grown
wrinkles, fine hairs, silver
where there was once gold.
But you have not tarnished
as metal does. What shine
of sun in your mind has stayed
strong as wine, brightening
through the evening, shaking strong
on the chesspiece. I take your hand
and your skin slides warm beneath mine,
and our voices fill the air
with gladness.
-
- _
⠀
Mama
I love you. But
like seeing a baby crow on the ground
restless, flightless, so pale
and beautiful and wild, I feel
an irresistable temptation
to hold you and forget
that you are not as I remember you to be—
that you exist
beyond your presence in my memories. I
will push when I should not, I
will pull when I should let be, I
will try to make the world as it was
when we were last together
all those years and quarters and worlds ago
and my efforts
will cause more harm
than good.
⠀
I am sorry.
⠀
I find that
when the sun sets through the window
and the sky blooms with midnight
and I turn to watch the spectacle,
you shy away
where you would once turn to watch the blaze
of fire shining through the peaks,
and when the blaze glows scarlet with dusk
you close the curtains.
⠀
I part them again
and peer at the abyss
because I have not yet learnt to fear it.
⠀
My love, won’t you take a chance at wonder
and watch the stars with me?
⠀
You do not
and as the sky outside bleeds,
tasteless colours reign inside
from creaking thrones
and bottles of expired medicine.
Dust on hard oranges lies thick
like grey furry mould
in striated layers
and the wax of the countertops comes off
in great big flakes
beneath my idle gouging fingernails
as I stir, restless, an alien
in this tomb of despair.
⠀
I plead with you in earnest, but all you can see
is what lies before you.
Darling, look outside
as you once loved to do.
⠀
Have you forgotten how to dream?
It is not anger
that rests in my chest.
I don't mean to scare you. It is fear
and sorrow, darling. I am scared
for how you have changed.
⠀
I push away the pieces
and the chessboard clatters to the floor.
Darling, please. You are so precious—
you waste yourself here.
Come see, my beloved, wake—
see beyond your fading dreams.
⠀
I take your shoulder,
turn you from the musty old walls
and tile floors and creaking beams
and bring you to the window.
You do not struggle, because you have forgotten how,
but plead to remain as you were
to return to what kills you so slowly.
⠀
Darling, novelty will make you shine.
⠀
Come, my love. Come
to the window. Lean on my arm,
it’s alright. I am strong,
almost as strong as you were for me, so many years ago
when I clung to your arm on my first day
with my peers
in astronomy. My love, recall
those days, your strength, and squint, now, peer—
see the tide! Remember when we would go out
hunting for geoducks and purple seastars
all those memories and lives ago? See the tide, now—
it shines under the sky
like liquid silver. The air is clear today,
and you can see so far! So bright, you can see the fish
climbing toward the heavens. Look at the stars, my love!
They glitter so. They are so beautiful, gleaming bright
just like you.
⠀
I love you.
⠀
You sag against my arm. You are
tired, you mumble, just tired
and you beg to go to bed
and let the river of lethe
wash away those poisoned memories
of eternity.
⠀
I didn’t know that it would hurt you so,
to see the stars
while you die so quietly
by the sea.
⠀
You are shaking. Back to bed now. We
can compromise. From your bedside
you and I will see
those old sunblazed peaks—
mountains, close to home and solid
like soft apricots on a plate—
that warming glass plate
of the sea.
-
- _
⠀
Oh, darling
why didn't I come sooner?
You have fallen into a groove
deep in the road, set
by a hundred-thousand wooden wheels over years
and I cannot reach far enough in
to pull you back up.
⠀
Maybe we won’t see the stars today. That’s all right.
Maybe tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow
we will think of possibilities
instead of eventualities
and realities.
⠀
I tuck you
into bed, turn the sheets
just so, just as you always liked,
a soft
monotonous
exercise
but I do not complain.
⠀
Tomorrow, we may see the stars together.
⠀
I hold your hand
and through frail glass
warped like the IV bags
hanging at your bedside,
we will see the light of dawn.
⠀
I will love you always and forever.