i'd rather get missed calls
than get nothing at all
sipping tea on the balcony
thinking bout that night in albany
can't believe how much it rains
reminds me of the day before you came
keeping a place on my bed for you
keeping up the pace so i can catch up too
what are you up to? how are you doing?
i get the urge to call you every morning
but the mourning period is over
time for me to get sober
cause bottles are getting empty
and i'm beginning to feel the frenzy
tangled up in cords that keep me going on
why is your life so short and mine so long

I have spent my weekend
being less than human
in horizontal positions.
I have spent my weekend
empty and alone,
weeping hard
but only the house could hear it.
I have spent my weekend
mourning the person I was,
how full she was
how vibrant and strong she was.
I have spent my weekend
as nothing more than
a useless blank mass of flesh.
All I ask is that you
please, keep your flowers
from my face.

today i remembered what he smelled like.
i caught a whiff of something oddly familiar.
at first, i wasn't sure what it was,
but it hit me all too fast.
it was him.

i'm somehow always caught between forgetting he's dead
and remembering he's dead.
today i remembered.

chocolate axe body wash with a hint of lavender--
that's him.
it jogged my memory in an aggressive fashion,
almost intrusive.
all this time i was searching for him and came up short.
this time he found me.

the pursuit was long over.
after all, it's been almost two years
but there's something about it;
it shook me to the core,
it jolted me awake.
you see,
all this time i was asleep
in a cloudy daze
lost with no direction
but now?
now the quest continues with an unfamiliar sense of urgency.
how can i get to you?
how can i bring you back to me?
j.c.

Though I know I’m just
Pleading with my palms -
I say a prayer anyway

She paused, an almost smile flitted across her sorrow sunken face.
Her blonde hair reminded me of someone I used to know
Her blue eyes, while clouded, reminiscent of warmth.

She returned to her hymn, the mourning pitch rung in my ears.
"Do you sing for Beauty?"
"Do you sing for Truth?"

She never answered.

Too soon came the loss
Of those brave hearts

Pulsing in the holy brain
Compassion unmatched

Pounding on heavens door
We demand

Why does death come
To those who dare ask

To push forward is the first and the last
Redolent resplendent reach
Of this reality-laced drivel.
The perishing period
Intersecting curiosity and discovery.
Maybe the roads reach an end together?
Without division or shoulder to curb?
Morning routes follow evening trails,
I’ll search every path and find that place
The universe is too small to stop me now.
Hobbling, blinding, drowning – the shapes
Of sorrow are as rain to the Umbrella.
How can happening upon each other
Be blithe coincidence?
When the time for parting draws near
I will not claim destiny as providence
Or curse the shed of mortal rinds.
Life will go on to the limit
Of strength.
I know that is where I will find you.

On Monday, my husband waits until I get home to say the words.
I go to unload the car and carry back tears.
Sitting, stirring, I begin to take out stitches on
a strayed shawl for the third time.

An artist and an adventurer, she sipped Dickle and ate meat
and raised chickens. She slept in a small house to live spaciously.
Erin was tall and never knowing of how she showed me to
express, explore, expand, to exist.

On a long ago Friday, with frayed Carhartt pants, we were
chatting about women, and their depictions in magazines,
Erin says,“Well, they’re not shaped like a real woman.”
For a lasting moment, I see from her wise and lovely eyes.

Erin is a stitch unlooped from our tight knit.
A drafty gratitude, a sudden shiver. She was here, with us, with the world.  
And now we are looping onto each other, tenaciously.
Even so, what are we to do with slipped stitches and this hole?

May we purl pain into artistry. All we have to do is add the t.  
So we will paint. And we will climb mountains.
We will tear and we will cry and live and bleed and die.
Until then, we have no other task than to knit ourselves together.