I remember, I must

I remember the gold hair in your beard,
As the loss descends, much as I feared.
The eyes grandmother warned me to avoid
Have bored, into my heart, an endless void.

I remember how hair curled on your neck,
How, when you fought, a tiny spittle-speck,
Frothed, and formed strings, between your soft lips –
The void shifts. Tears threaten. My breath dips.

I haven’t eaten a mango this season –
Will strawberries hold you back for treason?
I would look for you when you’d gone too far,
How I would instruct you to drive the car,
I pick up the phone to wish you good night –
But you’ve kept your silence and killed this right.

I remember your leg‘s weight when we slept,
I remember the promises we kept.
I remember your warm hand holding mine,
Through each movie, every single time.

I remember you wiping my tears dry
And I wonder how you have let me cry…

The kids miss you. (Remember my daughter?)
They have passed for you, like dirty water.

I’m mad at you. I’m pining. I am lost.
If I’ve hurt you, is this truly the cost?
Because I loved the way you felt and thought,
I‘ll always remember, but you forgot.

Though, through this caravan of memory,
I‘ve seen us through paths you will never see,
You’ve forsaken me in a place I know,
Love will hold fast; but I must let you go.

Dirty Wishes

As I mourn your loss,
I mourn everything,
That time takes away
And death tends to bring.

Two loves have come to absence
But there is mom, aunt and sis,
And I have anxious furkids,
Who wait for attention’s kiss.

The world is on lockdown
And gives reasons for art.
It calls to a poetry
That rips from the heart.

I have chores and work:
Money matters like dirty dishes:
They have no sense of fatigue
Like love’s earliest wishes.

I have surrendered joy
To the fate-like powers.
I work at relationships
And I live through these hours.

My past knows I survive.
As the tears dry, I will know, too,
Sure, as the future knows life,
Life shall be known by you.

Bier

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.