letters to the moon

cold day then, some dark november afternoon

cast grey and white fog against the window pane,

The slow realization, the shame at waking alone,

you no longer home.

your mothers hand rising, her face towards the masses,

the way she sighed out your name as your train went past us.

me: imagining I could see your hand raised through the glass.

me: standing there clutching the umbrella handle, keenly aware, my heart in a scramble

your over the shoulder glance, my devotion an animal

I’ve put in a corner and turned away from,

the movement of your shadow in the half dark

in a goodbye, soft as wintertime, pressed under the down covers, leg over mine

listening in the grey morning to the larks start to sing in the light

Of

The city at night

You in the city at night

The cars a flow

Of fire below us

The wind in our faces an oncoming storm

Close your eyes and listen, breathe

You said remember, that faded dream

Can you wake up now

Can you begin

Remember that night I. The rickety train, the moan of the wind and the rain pattering the window pane

Your head on my shoulder I thought, god I don’t don’t what I thought

Maybe in my reflection I sought a braver me

but it was just blurry you see

what am I going to do?

I’m so broken

I am such a fool

an impossible situation

I don’t know what to do.

I smelled your hair, before they took you away

I thought somehow I would remember and this piece of you would stay

today I realized it has faded anyway

because I don’t remember the smell but I know it was like home. And now I am nothing. And now I am alone.

Every day, harder still. I thought maybe but no, this grief is like the ocean, forever filled

birthed from the center of the earth. Fathomless. The only cure being impossible. Hopeless.

How could I have gone from having someone who loved me so much, to having no one ? I can’t comprehend, I can’t come to grips in my mind, how something so horrible, so merciless could have happened to someone SO KIND.

And now we will never share another day, I will never hear your voice new, hear you speak, here you say: sure do love you, or my name or “it’s going to be okay”

It’s crueler than unbearable, it’s some unnameable word.

much like the last. Each year tougher, each time as it passes. I try to tell myself every day it could be rougher; eventually it has to be okay.

and stumbling out into dusty long disused dining rooms, twisting cobblestone corridors, tomes in strange languages encased on tall shelves, pages of ledgers that belonged to someone else.

sorrow painted the halls of this home grey. all the love has walked down the gravel path, looked up at the glass windows, gone away

how I dreamt of its marble halls flooded with light. now only memories live in these walls, murmurs of voices from far away rooms , what manor holding veins of life, and loves is now a windswept tomb

as autumn leaves curl up on themselves from hundred year oaks, the secret keepers over human folks, the witnesses any faith could evoke, whispering leaves as winds pass through saying: I know you and you and you-

and leaving that place, you know this refrain; you can’t ever leave a place like that, it becomes your bones, it becomes a thing that knows, that speaks your name.

The intimate halls of the train, not trench narrow - Our cabin’s a sleeper, we rock, soft in the sounds of the pelting rain, like two sparrows in a downy nest

I thought at least in this moment, my heart knows your heart best. My head goes, hair sweaty to rest on your chest.

You reach a soft hand up, I think, we might be blessed.

Good riddance

What a twisted beast

Horrid summer nights spent in fear’s company

I don’t think i will ever look at an august the same way

Remembering her face, wishing she could stay

Knowing she had to go, her breath against my arm

Relief. Releasing her from harm

Guilt, at the taste of relief, at the letting go

At the wondering should I have waited longer, could I have saved her, now I’ll never know

The drenching fear with discovering you’re right

Knowing you’ll have to fight now another sort of insidious creature, but you can’t, you can only hope your prayers reach there

and hope, the smallest spark of hope that refuses to die,

Even sitting in the halls of the hospital for hours wondering why

Hiding your tears in the backyard after long hours at clinic,

hoping he won’t give up, hoping he’ll be strong, hoping he can win it

I rediscovered god this past summer

I haven’t prayed like that since I was a child with my mother, reciting from the hallway at shady grove

Now, 4:30 am I’m on my knees before the couch in our tiny living room and it’s 5 hours until the test I haven’t rested yet

I’m bargaining with the Heavenly Father, the 1940s upholstery is my alter

I won’t ask for anything else I won’t falter

I can’t lose him also after our daughter

How do you live in the after

I don’t know

Somehow time passes

without you letting go

a season has gone by now

I think, how she loved the snow

And life itself continues like a green thing trying to grow

Bitter in the cold

12.25.2019

Long walks along the river bank at night

I tell him he’ll lose himself

he says it’s worth the risk

8.11.19

I wondered last night in the dark

Seeing you stand on The sidewalk, the cigarette in your mouth

Ambrosia at prospect park

I think the best thing I ever read was you

In the hallways creaking floor

Your mouth against my ear, asking me to sway some more

The piano singing from the room next door

I couldn’t catch my breath as the year passed from before

And you whispering aud Lang syn praise the lord

what can this one know about love?

what’s inside, she says to me in the library stacks, her back to the racks a light in her eyes, book spread open on her thighs - or

I wasn’t the one was I? She sighs

I can’t open my mouth I won’t lie, I promised I’d be braver this time

I’m biting my lip, I’m saying goodbye, id rather be alone I guess since we keep missing each other in our waking lives,

We pass in the kitchen at night, we pass each other in the hallway in the day, we pass each other and pass each other say hello and look away

You have, a glass in your hand tonight what a magnificent stroke of luck, you laugh, playing pretend

I’m struck by you, as ever

I quip back, or try for something clever

you smoke your cigarette and watch me with dark eyes

do you realize?

20.12.19

last night i had that dream again. the meadow and the doe rising with the fog at her back. the hard metal trap of -

did you know or, how long have you known or-

were you too polite to say it aloud?

that’s ok sweetheart, that’s ok.

the wind in the leaves, laughter reaching out as voices trapped in a glass jar.

or the echo of your name from afar- -

like water, i’ve forgotten my way to the sea

the spark of life i felt when your knee touched me in the library. that day we breathed in and it was dust between the two of us.

why is there always something between the two of us? haven’t we waited long enough?

i think i try to be truthful to myself. the shower, my church i visit every night: now i open my mouth, the water my communion. now i fumble the knob, the hotter the better. now let me be absolved of my sins. let me conquer this, let me burn it out. now i pray through wet hair, a fist clenched on the faucet spout.

still, the curve of your mouth how can you expect me - -

how can i blink it all away in the darkness;

the haze through the music, the bodies pressing, the little white pill in my hand.

god, how do i seem to only find you inside of moments like these, let me understand the terrible whys,

my religion: the pill turns to ash in my mouth, oblivion: my release.

i think, please let tomorrow be a different tomorrow-

a different animal from tonight’s animal.

let me be freed from this trap i’ve woven myself into. or tell me what i have to do.

my choices: kill it, forget, or you.

ah, and there’s the turning away sweetheart. that’s ok.

if love was a bird, i’d let it go.

maybe you did, mourns the birch, if you’re lucky you’ll never know.

- - oh. but what if it was the doe?

What parts of yourself would you keep

what parts would you have to cut out to survive

to revive what’s left

8.25.19

the petrichor smell of cold snow

gilted leaves sparking across your brow, lined limnal gold;

racing muddy feet across the briar, grasping sweaty with muck and mire, was it the worst thing you drew,

that bird, or higher?

the flash flash, crackle fire

it was enough to have known you, but I’m a liar -

The soft slow finish before the expire

4.11.19

the numbing of the lips, the mouth, the deafening of things that grow

curled up asleep under the snow

it’s the time of year for driving quickly through the dark

winding through the valleys with the heavy grey cloud embankment in the horizon, building fast

those winter days are fleeting past

the forest line in the dark,

eyes watching from a far, closer now inside my car

Hands pressing to shift, eyes, that scar

if we had a sleeping love, tucked away like a greening bud

I’d wonder if that was enough,

I’d pray, blunder trying to seem tough,

listen honey, I’d say, we’re the friend sort of stuff

Believe me if you knew that loving me means: rough

Then I’d let you turn away

7.27.19

That winter of 42

Crawling through the mud until our faces were blue

thinking, even the devils forsaken us thinking: this place is one god never knew

maybe, if you’re lucky you’ll wake up and this will all have been a dream: rough in the night

growing up skinny as rails, tough shit and out of sight

standing on the forest line, looking out at that meadow was it enough? Squinting inside dawn’s first light

the truth: it will never be enough, our fight.

the truth: it was enough that it was right.

8.17.19

your face in the firelight; sublime

The sweep of your hair against the pillowcase

And the knowing that I’d damn the world if I could just have a taste

and the ways and how’s that you are

the shape of your face in the dark looking at the stars

Smiling down into your glass of wine

I can’t help but look at you, look away, wish you were mine.

8.3.19