Documentary

My pushpin goes here on
the map of your death
to this point, to what I want to
remember of it
the wind, the breeze, the

hazy sunlight and the feeling
in my temples of looking out into the woods
sitting beside you
you, going out, coming in, coming back
you, reaching across the sheet for my hand
which I did not expect
you, with your surprisingly cold hand

you, saying, I'm ready
and nothing more

all the brown and heavy oak leaves
more than falling, more than raining down
blown down, made to come down
from so high
from so much another place to here
the journey so fast, so quickly done
some skittering dry and light through the wide and
open door
there isn't any word
for how they sailed, slid, and sounded, so light!
from the trees out there
to the room, in here
where you were and weren't

it was Halloween
it was unusually warm, and humid
like spring, in fall

and the high voices of your children
and my children
finding and excited
out walking in the woods and
unmindful of us, or this moment

like the outside
breeze and leaves
carrying to us.

As Told By

After I tore
my life down
and ended up with
nothing but a

smooth river
without wind and with
brown and gold reflections
of a bare and dry and
sad November

I moved
into a raftered loft
in an old hat factory
on that same river
sliding by my floor-to-ceiling windows all day

and one day
in a different November
I sat up
in my bed and
you were in my bed and
I was not the prettiest or best
woman you ever knew

but the one you wanted
and we wrapped
ourselves in sheets
and opened the french doors
and let the flurries in
so cold
so fresh
without prologue
without epilogue

only that morning.

The Funeral Was Friday

Two red
hurricane flags
one above the other

bend the pole
snap the wind

mark the surge

landfall is
already made

when I slide
legs up and
body down

into a hot bath soak
of fragrant Japanese flowers
at two in the afternoon

I rinse my hair underwater
I have not done that since I was a child

love is enough to choose
we love enough
we love
not enough
to be a choice

white is my color of
mourning

again we snap the car doors shut
plane doors shut
everything, shut
everything, boarded up
then rushing,
then gone

again I cross
I make the arc of
a red lacquered bridge

I make an arc
I cross the red bridge

I come back to you.

Process Comment

When its particularly intense times, good or bad, I don't have any urge to write about it. What I want, at those times, is to be present. Fully. Completely. All there, and nowhere else. That is the satisfaction. Expressing myself in any other way other than living it well doesn't appeal. It is different than being too busy, too tired, too overwhelmed, too anything to write, or take a picture, or whatever. Reflection is incompatible with being there for me. While D. was sick these past 7 weeks, and when he died, and the days after, I did not want to say anything about it in this way. I just wanted to be there. And I was.

I don't know how to evaluate that. I suppose in my own opinion it cements me as a hobbyist and not a Writer, or Artist, or Poet. People I know whom I would term those things I think would not be able to live the experience fully without also and more simultaneously expressing it in their chosen forms.

I usually err on the side of saying every goddamn thing. But not at those times, good times or bad times. There I like the quiet of living, only.

Bad poet. Bad bad poet.