Sympathy remains for burials

Zipped in black

Who comes to vouch then?

Our frequent misdeeds

Finally earning their napkin passage

To the annuls of eternal regret

(we are not well, they cannot tell)

I want to ask you

Open yourself 

Let me back

But you are bolted down

Emptied of patience

Keening to leave

You are covered in oleander petals

Like a bride awaiting the fissure of her maidenhead

Bon voyage, little girl

Leave behind then, your childhood room dug from limestone

All the china dolls you despised, with their haunted painted eyes

Under a yellow light attracting flies

Trying to catch up on diary entries half filled

End on the page where you finally hone the art of illusion

The confessor wears a wagging chin, the judge is a mute 

And this rope will not be strong enough for two

We sit by sea spray, electric in timbering sound

Soon, there is no division

Between waiting and being

I can’t cry on demand or be happy, because you need me to be

You purchased a faulty part

With your drive-through iced tea and donut rings

Blessings over family dinner,  ash creased between eyes 

Eggshell blue walls, bespoke of fragility inked in generations

Symbols on concave plates, nobody begs for seconds

in our hollow home

(we are not well, they cannot tell)

Sorrow out-stayed her welcome 

Take your wet bills and muddled sums

Away to the shelter of denial

As hunting owls wheel overhead, splitting slipstream

We marvel at the endurance of deep currents

Deceptively calm on jade surface

Watching to pull you under with

Softest entreaty.

(*title from graphic novel by Tynion, Dell’Edera and Muerto, winner of the 2020 best new series Will Eisner award).