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How We Begin to Repair
Honeysuckle, jasmine, lily. Heavy heads
of peony droop before the shears. No rain
in ages. Three days
and you are sixty. Weak
gladiolus face down on the lawn I clip
for the vase you gave me
long ago
when nothing was broken or damaged.
I uncoil the hose in expectation of resurrecting
these blueberries, leaves a maddened brown
of neglect. I can offer you
nothing, only this portrait
of the last breaths you take,
sucking air from the oxygen mask
like a baby drowsing at the breast,
your sister’s fists blossoming white.
Give us your wisdom,
words to say when breath fails
and you lie, a husk
turned away from the sun,
while we,
somehow changed, wander
into a intensity we thought we’d forgotten
a weightlessness we cannot begin to explain.
Return to Volume 2.4
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