Tell me the place I could find
that key would open your door
reveal to me a way I might
shrug off silence and hear the timber of your
voice once more.
Without you, then what is left to write of?
And for whom?
For you who will not hear? The exile of my heart
the one who ate the flesh clean
revealing china bone and loosened red petals.
I never knew how pearlized bone could look
how easy to lose the contour of life, as lean spirit lingers only
yet in marrow, something of you remains indelible
an ink blot of those years spent staying away
I dig through black soil, your essence
the oils in your hair, the way your cheeks hitched
in smile, how grace lent herself your shape
an echo reflected in glass cage.
They cut me from you, removing tenuous link
and just like that; satellites slept, radio stayed silent
even languid ships lost at sea, received no signal
our unravel lasted a life time, lost thistle pollen
like a briar of ivy, grown thick over memory
containing too many snarls to push aside.
I learned the language of longing and loss
as fluent as you mastered running barefoot
I see you now, a shill of bone and sinew
stretched against light, evaporating
maybe everything of me, is everything of you
even as you push me away, denying our linkage
maybe it’s because we’re so alike
beneath difference and those smoldering, unsaid things
sitting terrible and tall at tables with uneaten food grown cold.
I wonder now, beneath tired kitchen clock
ticking down hours we no longer have
or the scurry of life around us, licking cracked lips
whether I was really born of yearning?
Rather than flesh, wood or earthly things
whether every emotion and every gesture
has been in search of you
you, my first love
surely I heard your heartbeat before my own
chiming in-between your ribs, where I floated
the heart you keep lost from me
growing deep roots in chest cavity
like thorny roses finding no space to bloom
how I ache
to feel your hand on mine
or know you are near
where the resonance of emptiness
a life without you
is for a moment
vanquished.
๐๐พ๐ The neverending grief of a daughter longing for her mother. This poem details it well. ๐ข
Thank you for sharing, especially, your latest poem. It is crushing (if that’s a word) beautiful.
An empty place no other can fill
Breathtaking, the ache you make us feel with you. That sad clock is so loud, and resonates through us all.
It makes me get so happy (and I MIGHT do a happy dance) when you like what I have written. I suppose it has a lot to do with how much I admire your writing.
๐๐ฅฐ