dearly beloved:—

no ode to elegy but some other way

to summon the dark irreverence

in our hands & breath

for (listen) who dies next

though

I admit

I tend to claim

only the sorry facts

the losses

we mostly survived

the many bitternesses

that didn’t sever how we continue

to cleave

our days together

first the early months of

learning how to fit

love in the mouth

with a history of grief still living

behind our teeth

then a static note where the fetal heart

. . . .

should have flickered

then your cancer

cut free & cured

like the river of my youth

. . . .

which could’ve but didn’t take you

for the unknowable bottom of death

so bless every ragged thing

returning our togetherness

our comfort reshaping around

what I weep to call a miracle

each new gravity of light

quietly flooding the shared rooms

I know I know      goddamn time

pulling us toward different endings

no one knows       & I don’t want

to learn

any beautiful bewilderment left

in the wonder

of your wake & I don’t want

to rename the unbidden slow-dance of

my own impending nothingness

    lingering 

waiting to join another nothingness &

I don’t want you alone either with

whatever sound follows

the tearing of an almost

fabric-like absurdity

we’ve spent years

wild

with faith

weaving into home—the terrible belief of

resting & rising inside tomorrow

undivided             what future shudder

did we dream for one another

my god    I need it to matter then

how we’ve spent the darkness

of so many evenings

swaying to 

the temporary music made by

a hurt-close living—smiling & turning   

nearly the entire night sometimes

fixed