In Spring

Everyone’s cold. To-do list
stretches miles and I won’t
get out of bed. Email from a sane man
screams I AM AFRAID
YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN ME
and I’m dropping small tears
on your shirt but you’re
not in it. Kids outside
are doing what they’re supposed to,
screaming, pushing, falling down,
and I see your frown in a photo
and it’s frostbite on my bones.

You’re gone. Can’t feel
my feet, but lavender fingers ache.
Grief counselors preach acceptance:
You aren’t coming back.

I say, take me, wakening earth,
take what’s left of this frozen stone.
Close that wound up. Let spring begin.


photograph by Allie Taylor

A Complete List of My Regrets (So Far)

1. Brad—
Lenox? Linden?
Lennon?—
definitely him.

2. And two months ago,
when I had the chance,
not stepping over
the ankle-high fence
to take your hand
and stand with you,
laughing, under the biggest willow
on Saint Stephen's Green.



photograph by Esther Moliné

Sea Green

I.
The shores at Shankill
are mostly deserted;
rocks roll in the waves
as the far sun sets.
You pull paper plates,
a bottle from your jacket;
I dig in my bag
for the late lunch you packed.

Olives; hard sausage, cubes
of white cheese, bumping
cradle-gentle in their green oil.


II.
You're fishing deep dark pockets
for the silver forks you fingered;
in my head I'm reading
wet words
from your last letter. That same picnic,
the same stumbling surf, the same far sunset:
the same circumstances,
and some other me.

Phosphene

Man, you are man, mosaic--
One shimmering image, three kinds of smiles,
Ten frowns--

We think of loss
As a hammer; juggernaut;
Bowling ball; forest fire;
The river, shaving stone. I
nevitable.

But loss
Is an a
mbush, and each wind
Blinds me anew
With handfuls of sand

That were tiles


That were blue

That were gray

That were blue

Green eyes.

Widow at the Orthopedist

He takes my right hand gently,
touches each fingertip. I look at the door.

I wouldn't have come.
It's never hurt this much before.

Every day? he asks, turns my palm
to the white ceiling. Cross pens clink
in his breast pocket.

No, I finally manage. Some days
I don't feel anything. Some nights
numbness is what wakes me up.

Everything is just so slippery.
Nothing will let me hold it for long.



photograph by Lara Korlara