Husking: A Prayer

Beloved, you sat in your throne,
humming
like a mother in a rocking chair,
in a candle-dim corner of the house.
I curled up
at your feet, nestled my head on your knees,
while you hummed and peeled away
at my heart
as though you were husking corn.

I Wrestle Daily With Humility

There's a knack to it, I think,
a knack
to moving silently about the world, all
blood and bone and air.
There's a knack to being nowhere, nonexistent,
still then touching on a shoulder,
rubbing spittle in their eyes.
There's a knack to being no-one
and expecting, still, your hands to heal
and words to burn long after
you are gone.
“Dying is an art,” said Sylvia,
and she was right.
There's a knack to letting God
be God, and letting God be
you, and letting you be gone.
You learn to be
still.

Chalkboard

There is no poetry for you,
my friend.
There are no pulsing crimson
apples or silk sheets
billowing like snowdrifts
on the clothesline.
No crooked smiles
nor bruised cheekbones flesh
out my memories of you.
Behind closed eyes I see
no diamond
kite against a white sky rolling;
In the dark, my ears revive
no echo of a laden “see me”
whimpered in your sleep.
We had no time
to build impressions, images, or words
in which to bathe the weeping
sores away before this blunder ended.
There is no poetry
for you, my friend.

My soul is blank and dusty
as a chalkboard in the basement
where you were
meant to scrawl your name.