The elasticity of our skin
Was never guaranteed.
The packaging never told you
that the chemicals would eat
at your underside.
They wrote across your grave:
Spirited, Respected, Beloved.
How does it feel to know
only three words sum up your life?
Stammering and stumbling,
we try to grasp the outstretched hand,
for support we never wanted to need.
The silence begins to eat at our bellies,
Scraping to the dregs and drenching you
In hesitation.
We visited your grave in the sunshine,
Arguing amongst ourselves as usual.
Two sets of two generations
of women.
We stood above your grave, as if
we hoped you might tell us
what we forgot to ask,
or the wisdom you forgot to mention.
And I hope the trees sway above you,
moving with the wind like a breath
across your face- I hope you remember
what the world feels like or felt like,
or how you were the greatest adventurer
and surest foundation for an entire family,
entirely too lost and too headstrong
to do it without you.
I remember the photographs you sent from Alaska,
the stuffed polar bear you brought. I remember
hoping that some day I'd be able to enjoy life
like you did.
I hope the trees sway above you,
because willows remind me of you.
Last week, my mother gave me your old earrings
and I wondered if you'd worn them,
or felt like you were young and
beautiful- or worn them when you were.
And I'm feeling how I haven't grieved,
how I've pretended we aren't missing you.
How I've hurt for you for years,
but never knew just what to say.
I wrote a letter, and we buried it with you
-so maybe you might remember, and have us
close. But no letter does life justice.
They buried you in June and I wasn't even there.
No book, no three words, no line
-no single memory can recreate you.
And I'd like to kiss the teardrops from
my mother's aging skin. I'd like to tell
her she's done enough; we are human and
I sometimes like to think
we have the ability
to forgive.
I hold what little I have,
another handful of photographs
and a few words printed in stone.
I hold my dreams in an envelope
stamped and addressed
but never mailed.
