jan 5

I press the tiny crystal strung on orchidsilk into your hand

to loop along the rails of your mom's hospice bed

where she drifted, dying, in your living room

I turn to go but you pull me in

saying, Come she'd love to see you

And I thought I still think

I've never seen anyone be gentler with anyone

Than when you brushed her forehead

Pressed your palm to her cheek

and lips to her palm

before we left for the beach

I skipped my afternoon portuguese class

to drive you to the airport

the day you flew to your mother's mothersland to bury her

we sat foreheads pressed in parking lot prayer

in my old honda

And breath jagged from crying I said

it's not

and I am

and I love

and you kissed what you already knew

you came back with a tiny crystal turtle

tucked into humid island newspaper

the ink staining your fingers then mine

I find the turtle rattling around the junk drawer

in my childhood bedroom and instantly

I'm slingshot back 

to the crumbling porch steps of the house on nw 25th

where the swamp laurel roots grew straight on up through the pipes

where spider mites and velvet ants tiptoed across every flat surface

and where my tiny twin bed

devoutly carried the weight of our reconciliation

when we succinctly spilled through the doorjamb, knowing

our timing was all ways wrong

the house held its breath when you croaked

if there were any other way

the hushed hope of it stinging my cheeks

I think of the weird somber past present wisdom

the mournful divination

of your mom sharing a birthday

with my future ex girlfriend's younger brother

who, like your mom,

died of brain cancer

late one stifling August

when a gasp brought in no air that

wasn't already wrecked by sun

and knowing too much

but not enough to save any of us from being singed by the coming fire

How - I sent you a card on the anniversary of her dying the first few years

and I still can't decide if that was kind or cruel

How - Even now 12 years past the fact

I think of writing you to say

do you still wear that tiny silk strung crystal around your neck?

 

Or I'm so sorry I fucked your ex girlfriend

in the bathroom at your birthday party

then sliced up the carrot cake

like we were all made of nothing but

my state of matter had changed entirely

Or I was angry then frozen then you were alight

Or I've had to burn to thaw

 

Or you're the kindest person I've ever loved

 

Or that the crystal turtle sits now on the ledge of my bathroom window

In a place where I've never known you

but feel your loss all the same