The air is filled with lilacs and pine.
The summer scents stuffed into the air
overflow with old memories.

I miss my father.
I miss his smile, crooked and hard to win though it was.
I miss his love, warm and abiding.
I miss his broken nose and his gruff wisdom.

These, however, are not gone
but merely transformed.
I feel and see them everywhere.

The rain beats down harder now,
blurring my vision of the cloudy summer day around me.
I love the sound, quickening every second
until I feel like it might break the window pane
and come rushing in.
It reminds me of the day he died,
although he died in November,
and surely it couldn't have been raining...

Grief and time do strange things to the mind;
they bury some things and clarify others.

Four hours is a funny thing.
In four hours,
I can earn 48 dollars,
or I can shower and make breakfast
while flipping through the pages
of old books
and sipping my bitter coffee.
Four hours...
I suppose some could
save a life or maybe the world
in four hours.
But I cannot.

I can make 48 dollars,
or I can stare at the ceiling
and maybe think big thoughts
and not do much of anything
in four hours.

What a laugh!
I looked in her eyes
and saw that she was broken.
No one in this world
ever gets enough love.
We bleed our feelings
and silently beg others for help,
but no one ever comes.
Or if they do,
we smile and nod
and bandage our wounds ourselves,
afraid to be vulnerable,
afraid to be human,
afraid to give others the love we so crave.

The calendar days crossed themselves off,
one by one,
and the hands of the clock
ticked, ticked faster.
I did not know what I wanted,
but  I knew I wouldn't have enough time
to figure it out.

If you must sing me a song,
make it soft and gentle enough
for a baby's skin.
If you must shut the lights off,
give me a colorful nightlight
to reflect bouncing shades
about the perimeters of my walls.
If I must sleep,
allow me a sweet, sinking feeling
in the center of my everything
as I drop from reality into dreams.

Jorrah has been coloring
all day long sitting in
the grass – He brings me his
sheets of paper says he
has drawn all of his family members

On the papers are one hundred hearts
constructed with wobbly four-year-old hands
all the same color despite his
sixty-four crayons

I've been listening
to a recording of rain
when I try to fall
asleep


I've been learning
to share the space
on the bed
with myself


to let my dreams occupy
the places made
cool and empty


I fall asleep to rain
and wake up in my own arms -
that will never stop

wanting
to hold me