the news from the telegraph is bittersweet today.
they say they've found a way to take out the pain
of forgotten memories and blocked pathways in the brain.
i wish they would've cleared the road a little sooner.
swept off the loose branches and debris just a little faster.
because... what if it could have saved you?
what if you could've been the one i hugged at my graduation?
what if your letters were the ones waiting for me at the post office?
i can see it written in the corners of my mother's face
as i tell her the discoveries.
it doesn't take long for me to uncover
the bittersweetness she tastes too.
nothing is said but
i see it in the downturn of her eyes and
the ends of her lips, how they don't quite lift up.
that's how i know.
life has moved so fast since you've been gone, hasn't it?
and i know that she would've remembered the pain
of loss, of grief, of loneliness.
but maybe she wouldn't only have to live on
in film pictures and old grocery lists.
maybe my essay wouldn't have ended with a hope and a wish.
i have to trust that it's better off this way because
i know she is in a place with endless beaches and
not a single stone to weigh down her pockets
and that has to be enough.
i still think about the roses and red cardinals in the backyard
and it is enough.