Susan Melinda Moree

 
dark entry

california light rained
like the sugary something we ate
falling on his shin, my tongue, his toes
landing in his hair
car lights—fireflies out the window
laughing, fingers touching—
wind drew diamonds from the blur past

good-bye, in the midst of it all

on the other side of the sky

you gave life twice—

once, you know
but this you don’t
you let me go from the grief of your heart
as it slows—descending
its final turn making a drumbeat toward
dark

 
despite this

how does it feel when you feel nothing when you feel empty when you learn that a lover long dead to you died too young, too soon; how do you feel then? how do you feel when you note that he had no survivors, no wife, no long-time girlfriend who wrote his obituary who wrote him lyrics who wrote him a missive with a key who dropped petals on his grave, no children who cried when he lay cold, unable to decipher the logos, merely a carcass in a park on a bench in a town in the middle of the mid-west. how do you feel when you know how you cried when he said he’d gotten off the bus to say good-bye to say he didn’t love you, to say you were no body and no-thing and not one for him, there could be no future, no butterflies no wedding bands and now when you think on him you know you are who you are because of who he was because he turned you into refuse, into a half-eaten ham sandwich he had to throw away while he turned into something great and mad.