Afterwards

I keep dipping my toe into your memory

Seeing how much of it I can handle

Before the stomach muscles tighten,

And the breath slips

 

I talk to myself

While in the kitchen

Trying to cancel the silence

Trying to fill the space

Trying to ignore the spot on the floor where you would have been laying

Watching me or sleeping

Keeping me

Company

 

I try to keep moving

To stir up the air that has gone stagnant

In your absence

I tiptoe around the tiny land mines riddled throughout this house

They wait quietly; ready to set off some reminder

Should I step into my old routine

Should I forget

For just a second

 

On a Friday, after a long day of work

I go for a run out into the middle of nowhere

Where no one is watching

And collapse against the gravel road,

Sobbing

Declaring your absence

Putting it into words,

Taking it out of me

 

But I leave

Still full of the emptiness

You have left

Behind

It is the one thing

I can’t remove

Or get used to

Right Through the Middle

It is too soon to write
The wound is too fresh
I touch the pen to paper
And the stitches start to slip…

Swede Lake & Cattle Lane

Thank you, Lake Superior

In the Corners

Fertilizer

It was too late
On a Thursday
But I stayed
Anyway
The air was tossed between
Hot or cold
So it just hung there
Wet and indifferent
Playing games with our bare skin

I know summer by the knots in my hair
The pounding of my chest
The smell of dust on my hands
You pointed out spring to me
In the sound of the earth growing
Coming up from underneath
Fall’s dried leaves

In so many ways I feel that movement
Happening inside of me
Pushing past history
And using it as nourishment
To feed a better
Future

Snowballs

Any Weekend in January…

Bulbs: Water: Flowers

In All Kinds of Weather