To become air

(This is for my friends and hospice teammates, as we grieve for our patients.)

Each day is a kiss
 with no response,
but I know, it's a kiss.
 Like the kisses you’ve sown
 into the walls, the windowsills
for forty one years,
 the way our children crackled laughter
 when they were children.

 Each day I give myself a task.
 I count how many kisses given
 And how many received.
 I say, “Sweetheart, how many kisses will you give me today?”
And in your silence, I write down
 a thousand.

 A thousand kisses to give me time.
to catch your last breath into my body
I will keep you
as I too, wait
to become air*.

(*When Breath Becomes Air, by Paul Kalanithi)

3am cravings

Chased out of sleep by restless dreams
(I'm staring at a gaping wound pulsating on my head),
I wake up hungry, impatient.
I rummage through the refrigerator looking for some ready-made food, 

a left over pizza slice from Costco. Unsatisfied, I begin making dinner. 

I think about going back to bed.
I think about reaching over
your side of the bed,
pull myself close.
Out of habit, I kiss your back and
sleepily
leave my lips there.

The children will wake soon,
but there's still plenty of time
to cut the vegetables, soak the noodles, roast the onion and ginger,
start the broth. Even time
to brush my teeth again and read a poem.

(Sept 20, 2017. For B.)

It is done

It is done.
This life is done.
You don’t need to worry anymore,
though she is your life.
I know.
With her you’d tasted homemade apple pie
and fresh okra from the garden.
With her too, you saw sunflowers hung
heavy with seeds,
firm yellow petals radiant even at dusk,
how you imagined love
to be.

I know.
With her you’d found your burial ground,
finally stopped searching for your birthplace,
laid down your loneliness,
like a child waiting for
his mother’s return
for so long no one came except night
wailing
long and deep.

I know.

I know you worry,
but she will be fine.
She will find a way to change the light bulb. She will pay the bills on time.
She will know what to do with your books.
She will get help cleaning the house.
She will make it to the doctor’s office.
She will go to sleep and wake up on your side of the bed. She will sometimes
forget what day it is, but she will remember that she has a hair appointment.
She will laugh and tell stories about you, her witty, charming Abe.
She will grieve heavily,
and she will be beautiful,
because you are beautiful—
you and her,
this life,
apart and together,
in love and death,
are beautiful.

(In memory of Mr B.)
10/1/18

I bless the world

I bless the world.
I bless it
with stories of devotion on your body
and sing my hymns in your sleep.

Last night, I blessed the rolling hills,
carpets of violets and dandelions bloom
a cushion for tired feet,
your spine a river
to quench their thirst.

The night before I blessed it planting,
my fingers dug down to raise earth
on your back.
There I planted fruit trees.
In the valleys, low growing berries.
Up the hills, I planted vegetables.
These are the daily bread.

When love happens and pain
makes you weep,
I collect these blessed liquids to make wine.
In it, I bless the world and you.
Because this earth is my faith,
love is my church,
and I am the priest.

there is plenty

There is nothing to hate about us, you say.
I say there is plenty.

The hurt I feel is hateful.
The love I lost.
The daydreams that remain
daydreams.
The parts of my body scattered
in your apartment that I want back--
my hair, my sweat, my skin, my words, my stories, my voice,
my cooking, my jokes, my pleading, my yes, my no,
everything,
even the things I cannot recall
but my body does.
I want them all back.
But they won't come back.
And I hate that.


10/22/17

Counting grief

Counting grief

Tonight I went to the neighborhood bar
to begin a ritual
 every time
my heart breaks.
It's been a while since I've been here.

I asked for 2 shots of tequila-
1 to celebrate love
1 to end it.

I ended up doing 6-
1 to celebrate love
1 to end it;
1 to remember the hard lives lived,
or survived,
1 to mourn their end;
1 to hate myself,
1 to love me.
All to grieve
and remind myself that this
 is life-
it will go on,
as will I.


10/11/17

afternoon nostalgia

#21

Is the dogwood tree in the backyard blooming 

Like I imagine it would? 

Is the bougainvillea vine 

carpeting the front yard with valiant 

dead 

red 

blossoms?  

In my memory, they are fierce. 

I love you is a 3-syllables-long time loop

Still towards the end of March


I imagine it must be hard
to be you
when there is me
incessant and dogged
in my love.
I am sorry. There is nothing
I can do.


Perhaps I should not call it love.




But I tell you this:
I love you is a 3-syllables-long time loop.
For 3-syllables worth of time,
I wait.

Towards the end of March

Date: in the middle of March


Plan:
each day I will gather
something beautiful for you.


Because:
between words there is distance.
It teaches me patience.
You teach me the difference.




Date: towards the end of March
To remember, I drink and dance
naked by an open window--I want
to display myself to the world.
And why not?
Am I not beautiful?
You've told me so.

we are lucky

you and I are lucky.
we are stubborn enough
to insist that on any overcast sunday we make noise together,
watch the earth swell in the rain,
and marvel at rainbows without ends.


we insist on holding each other tightly,
and cry
for loves that have gone before
and loves petrifying before us,


afraid of hurting because we forget
we have survived pain.


and yet we still
insist on hanging on
to life despite
being not very good at it-



we are very lucky, actually.


our stubborn credulity
will save us.