18. unending

we grieve in circles, a carousel of forgetting
cut through by a lighthouse of remains, the
lost limbs of our loves singing a sirens song 
of what could have been 

the weight of absence pillows like a cracked
tea cup beneath tender eyes perched on the
seat of longing to be picked up by the smell
of our beloved’s skin one more time 

we are scattered by each memory, gathered
back by each lamppost of their legacy living
on in us, the puppet strings of strength to ward
off slipping away to a place where we might
find them

grief is a speckled stallion refusing to be erased, 
refusing to ignore the thorn in our paw, quiet 
avoidance of ever submerging our whole face 
in a bath of love so holy again

and she is also a field of wild flowers, a labyrinth
of perfumed awe cocooning our carrying on,
swaddling tomorrow in the curled kisses of yesterday 

but she rests heavy on the soft meat between our
ribs at night purring in deep sleep while we lie
awake, pressing against the small tide of wailing
climbing the tendrils of our spinal cord

we grieve in circles, each time we cross over
our unrelenting fear that surrender will break us 

our home is a puddle of coming undone in the
wake of every magnificence lost, of every thread
of our belonging torn