for Grandpa & every soul once familial and verdant.

fragile & palpable, memory stood — this ritual of longing
sacred potsherds of death & sojourn. my soul crevassing
ashes aisled in the mirror of light. it is memorial. the resi-
due of grief traipsing in my broken poem. & I remembered
home, of mouth seeped in doleful songs & desert blood.
is it the splinters of echoes crossing the river Styx? or the
garden of black roses exfoliating their skins? again, in my
poem, [in the silhouette of a bleeping blood], I desired grandpa &
every soul once familial & verdant — the bliss of holding &
beholding. & the times my heart littered with faces cackling
my jokes, mundane & mild. my soul, naïve & green. it is yet
another year & I wonder what grief finds in the petals of lily
things. I gathered myself as pellet of stones but my mouth
tethered to sing a dirge. it is memorial, candlelight & white
faces cascading. yet I refused to swell & ripple like the largesse
of a riotous river. I came with statices & ash prayers & they
dredged out a litmus paper. me, self, & I; alkaline & acidic.
bet you I’m broken while breaking free. reteaching self how
to hold tongs of fire & not plague a shadow. & to stride on
glasses without draining blood. I miss us like a poem brewing
in a lover’s mouth. Yes, I do. & one day, I’ll return here ripe-
ned like a hazelnut, greenish-brown, breaking free to undo grief.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Rob Wicks on Unsplash