Persephone's absence

Mid April and still no sign of her.
Frozen earth and naked branches,
a three month affair now flows over five
forcing us to hide inside from winter winds.

Come back, Persephone!
And let us feast on the fruits of summertime.
Put down the pomegranate seeds and send spring
so we can watch damp dirt dry
because your mother will cease to cry
and will restore the warmth with her love for you.

Dry Heaves

Alzheimer's stole her life
like pages missing from a book,
tearing out chapters by the handful.

And when she died I couldn't cry
but I hung my head over the toilet
trying to gag up the missing pieces.

Anchored then in my rippled reflection
I looked my grip around the rim
and remembered all that she couldn't

Georgia rips and Kent cigarettes,
soap operas and back scratches,
my name and her mother's face.

I added her story to mine
and flushed away her sickness
with he tearless toilet water.

Sunday Night Shopping

Tonight I walk down each isle, searching for something simple to make for dinner, when I haven't slept since Friday and the fluorescent lights make my head pound and eyes squint and each blink lets me see the fall again.

I watched him perched on my third floor balcony, 2:30 in the morning, gripping
the edge of the roof for balance, tempting me to join him.
I watched him, locked in a stare, like he was trying to memorize each branch and
twig of the tree in front of him.
I watched him shout off each thing I said to him, each threat I made, and push off
the edge.
I watched him fall, thirty feet, through the brittle branches of the pine tree to icy
ground.

And now, his skull lined with fractures
And now, his brain lined with blood
And now, bruises paint his eyelids like a cheap whore.

I would pray for him if I had a god, crouched and waiting, like he was that night,
tempting me to join him.
I would cry for him if I wasn't so tired, so angry, trying to think of anything but
the brown snow patch and fallen branches outside my window.
I would sit by his bed, not looking at his piss bag, morphine drip, scabbed
forehead, swollen face.

But now my stomach pulls me back to the supermarket, down each isle, scanning the shelves for something simple.

Before you come to bed

I slip under our faded
down comforter and in between
our pale blue jersey sheets,
wrinkled with signs of sleep

and stretch my toes down
touch each sock stuck
in the tucked in sheets

and press my nose deep
into our bed, past the smell
of your after shave
and our sleeping bodies
to where the sheets still smell new

then, drag my hand down
to that rust colored stain
from when my period came
too early and the thought
of waiting on our love making
seemed impossible.

Tracing Grandpa

Like a statue, he sits
silent, still, representing
the memory of a man.

As the IV clings
to his forearm, dripping
life into his violet veins
Nana traces her finger
along the cracks of his face
like she's searching
for directions on a faded map
studying
83 years of experience
chiseled into his cheeks and forehead
remembering
a life of boundaries
his love, like barbed wire
keeping her at a distance
unless she wanted the scars.

But now he sits silent
thinning like an icicle in thaw
with bruises, like inkblots, dying
the paper thin skin of his hands.