Strange how lifting
A body in death,
Though wrecks my back,
Still leaves me with breath;
But stifling
a heart break
Stops all air
my lungs make.
Strange how lifting
A body in death,
Though wrecks my back,
Still leaves me with breath;
But stifling
a heart break
Stops all air
my lungs make.
It keeps threatening to consume me whole:
This dark night of my questionable soul.
Death, separation and heartbreak,
I dread to think of what else they take.
For now as the summer sun grows hot
And the very earth condemns our lot,
The fates conspire and repel all desire.
Mourning comes in the building of a pyre,
With rules and laws, medicines and food,
What should I beg for and to what good?
I cannot blame an evil eye, or sin,
For all this breaking and screaming within.
It seems hopeful to call it the forge of life
And believe in higher metaphors of strife.
I’d rather know less of grief than I must;
I’d rather seek anything else to trust.
He meant nothing to me –
Except he was your father
Who turned you away
For being gay.
You did all you could
And I know you would;
Because that’s who you are.
Suffering teaches you
The value of death.
Seeing you do,
What needs to be done,
Breaking a pot,
Taking turns around the fire,
Lifting the water
And the clarified butter,
Like the body of your father,
Like I had done a few years ago,
Made me weep.
Abscesses linger
Of abandonment.
Wounds that have cut too deep
Don’t allow the momentum
Of life to fall back into joy.
You will leave by morning,
For duty, a calling
And a new suffering,
Time has chosen to employ.
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