Old dog,
your putrid breath
reminds us of the decay of death.
Unsteady legs rise with effort
as your old eyes lock your foggy gaze
on me.
Old dog, some day I will have to make
a hard decision, unless your nightly
snores and sighs
(that sound like burglars in the garage,
and scare me when I’m alone)
should give way to silence,
that will tear my heart apart.
After you’ve been gone and my heart’s been sore
I’m delighted to listen to the music of your snore.
You’re too far.
It doesn’t matter that it’s only a day.
I feel bereft without my back up.
Knowing you’re at my back
is my security,
against myself.
Don’t be far
for long.
How strange
that this space that was always filled by you
is vacant now.
Some time,
I don’t know when,
you stopped paying rent and disappeared.
Now the corner where you lived
has fallen into disrepair
and when I look for what used to be
I see only
moldy fragments in the space
that was yours.
What went before
What went between
What went around
What went above
What went contrived
What went controlled
What went inspired
What went
where?
“Isn’t it odd how much fatter a book gets when you’ve read it several times?” Mo had said…”As if something were left between the pages every time you read it. Feelings, thoughts, sounds, smells…and then, when you look at the book again many years later, you find yourself there, too, a slightly younger self, slightly different, as if the book had preserved you like a pressed flower…both strange and familiar.”
I’m fond of flowers
bought because
today is worth celebrating;
they are lovely,
and you are captivating.
Unexpected joy does
blossom for hours.
Outside, in the twilight
the world is black and blue,
like a sun bleached wrapper,
yellows and reds leached away.
Just an old wrapper,
a ghost of its former brightness,
as is this day, lightness fading
blue.
Grief today
is not like yesterday’s;
today it’s a ball, lodged deep in the throat,
instead of yesterday’s hovering cloud.
Tomorrow grief may be rain washing away every thought,
or the laughter of melancholy memories or perhaps
I won’t be able to keep tears at bay.
It’s impossible to say.
Grief is complicated,
that way.
January is filmed
in black and white,
soft focus filter,
lots of white space.
Mist grows until
it fills the screen,
ready for the credits
to roll by.
