Poems of loss

“We”

have cast a metaphor over me:

last week’s snow on a freshly cut tree.

domed,

crisp, cold, clean.

muffling the shivers of a dying evergreen.

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The future is hard to see through the eyes of a broken past.

There is a ghost next to my plans, a conspicuous absence, bending the light.

My someday has become transparent. Like my excuses.

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Sometimes I have the energy to imagine myself a new man: proud and bright. But I resent his smirk.

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The last new towel

from our wedding linens.

Two and a half years in a closet,

(folded so hopefully),

and brought out now - into this.

It is soft; smells like registry shopping-

like our jokes as we scanned the household goods that would constitute

our dreams.

Our finally.

Our home.

But its awkward newness won’t absorb.

I stay wet.

And it pushes the water around,

chilling my skin as I move through this emptiness.

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Jesus.

Why would you choose this?

In my calloused and senseless soul I feel so acutely the loss inflicted by our cruelty. How much more, in your infinity, did you know of sorrow?

Do you know of sorrow?

Or was it for respite? Was the incarnation a chance to enter into our blindness? To shield your too-open eyes from the shame of our choices, to share in our comfortable ignorance?

I am sorry.

I am sorry for you.

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The eloquence of loss is a blunt thwack. It is an efficiency of movement in downward strokes; achieving nothing, but symbolizing something primal.

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I cannot pierce the bubble in my own heart.

I am barely holding it together with all my might. If it pops, I will drown.

And I am afraid to build a boat.

Acknowledging the quantity of chaos which presses and thrashes against my ribcage might bring on the deluge I can’t outlast. Moses couldn’t send out a dove until he was floating. I can’t even plan my weekend.

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I want to create meaning. I want to live artfully. I need to write or sculpt or make love. But I am unable to love.

Loving is an act of such dexterity; such steady balance, that it cannot be performed with shaky hands or singed taste buds. It requires senseperfection.

And what of art? how can one reflect the rhythms of truth from a crippled soul?

I suppose there is hope in the seasons. The deathgrip of winter leaves loam for the spring. But if you are unprepared, the pollen is an affliction.

What would you do without expectations? a silly question. I am accountable.

Can I stand up straight in this role? If not, can I break through it?

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