Goodbye

A mother broke in 1969
not a fall off the shelf
explode across the linoleum
atom splitting
shatter

Slowly
like the beach carried to sea
grain by grain
or a hairline crack
turned against the wall
hustled to a corner
into a chair
under a blanket
until no more hiding
the pieces falling off
to form a chalk outline
a shadow silhouette

Yesterdays snaked her ankles
into it’s hungry undertow
leaving the shaking bits
the fisted glances
fading to flatline
particles
folding into herself

Rummaging her jewelry box
fingering each pasted jewel
like stars
the 100 billion stars
in the 100 billion galaxies
leaving we, the broken binary
pulling away from each other
without a common mass

Losing

I can’t write this
I can’t speak this
I can’t paint, dance, sculpt, play this
It just is
the burn between my bones

The bleeding from my lips
shroud my skin in hues
my dry eyes can’t color
Ignorant of earth’s hum
I stutter out of tune
skies tumble and turn
in the gravity of it

I plunge my hands into the soil
to feel a thousand years
and slap my empty palms
I reach to meet the sun
my arms useless
as butterfly wings
in the rain

I touch photographs
one by one to my tongue
taste spring, summer
fall, winter’s still
without you
I ache the not to be
the left behind
the null of it