His left eye
Always gravitates
Toward the constellations

Even though
That prom night
Falling star

First breathed life
Into the weird concrete carport
Down by the water treatment plant.

His right eye
Always gravitates
Toward the earth

Even though
The Great Water Fountain
Out west

First taught him
How to truly
See the sky.

I was driving the back roads from my house
out in the country where things are real;
they live, they die, they make noise and they move
in the way Nature intended.

The road bumped under my wheels because it wasn't paved,
dust flew up behind the car, but fresh air came in my window.
The sun was going down a bit, so the horizon in my rearview mirror
was a beautiful orange blaze which gave me peace.

And for some reason I wondered when it would come.

I've been waiting for as long as I knew it existed
though when I was younger the wait seemed so long
the coming seemed more fantasy than reality,
time changed that perception as did experience and loss.

Now I know it's closer.  Thank God I can't feel it near yet
but I know it's closing in and I wonder when it will arrive;
I also wonder whether it will be swift and merciful
or if it will play with me and make me suffer
and force me to be brave
I'm not brave, you know.  I'm just stubborn
and I like to fight battles I am not supposed to win.

Then I wondered if fighting would be worth it
because all I want, all I need, is to be a part of this out here
a piece of what is real, which is why my peace will be as
scattered dust riding on the wind to find my place
in all of this beautiful, sacred, loving nature.

I wonder when it's coming.
          Some days i don't want to wait.

As you grow older,
Remember the memories you've made.
Remember the people you've met,
    and those who became your closest friends.
Remember who you are,
    and the values you hold.

You will be challenged.
You will be tempted.
But remember that you are
    never truly alone

Your family will always be there.
For support.
For love.

Despite the differences you and I have had
I will always be there for you,
My little sister.

maybe you were right: i never brought
home flowers or chocolate
cleverly arranged in the
shape of a heart and
i couldn't afford a day at the spa
but i'd always sit with my bare ***
on the cold bathroom tile for hours and
feed you toasted bits of cheese on ritz crackers
while you cried in the bathtub i'd
braid your hair as you
let your fingers wrinkle until
the water cooled off too much your
******* got hard and bubbles
stuck to the cut of your shoulders

because you were there when
my mom's little car died on a backroad
under the old black tree
that scratched up the sky
you pulled your pants up
over ruby knees and asked
me to fix your bra
smoked a cigarette lying upside down
across my damp chest
facing my feet and
made me make a promise
while i traced music notes into
the soft flesh of your back with
my ***** fingernails and found
the cracks in your porcelain ankles
with my tongue

you said my love for you is
something that will never make sense
and you never know what to do
with your hands when i'm kissing you
but you moaned the chorus while
i sang verses into your bellybutton
and tied a couple fingers to the
soft web of hair behind your ears
we were like two locusts
fighting in a gossamer heap

two weeks later you were dancing
in my kitchen like a daffodil drunk
on robotussin wearing only striped
peppermint legwarmers and
authentic dreamcatcher earrings
so i bought a theremin from
your favorite pawn shop
and taught you how to tickle it
and as the wind picked up
whipped your hair into a
crucial comet's tail and rustled
the caterpillar from the windowpane
back to it's home in the wormy grass
i could hear the warm whistle
it made when you played with it
alone in the bedroom

i am crying now while
driving down highway one
recalling how your nose crinkled
when you smoked crushed roaches
or the way your hair tasted in the morning
and how you used to spit a
little bit when you laughed
and i can still hear that haunted echo
even as the saltwater swells
and splashes past the rocks

that sun machine is just
a distant memory now
but it left burn marks on my skin
and the floor where we tumbled
and fought the first time
i called you beautiful

to love a poet, kiss him when he bleeds, kiss him deep,
make love to him when he is dead, so passionate that he shall chose to rise,
and then he becomes your dog, and you his home.
that's more than that can be asked and that you'd know

We have different thoughts when we lay awake at night,
You're worried about more alcohol,
I'm just trying to make you feel alright.

I have been trying to cradle your soul,
But it doesn't help it all,
Build you up to be bigger than me,
And you still feel small.

I have been waiting on nothing so it never arrives,
Falling asleep to neon lights through the curtains,
With tears in my eyes.

You said it yourself,
Timing is everything,
It's not just fate,
I'm always early and you're always late.

****
And you said it would be different,
That you were someone I could adore,
But it's all the same,
I give it all to you and end up torn.

What a shame.
What a shame.
Yeah, you were in the wrong
But I took the blame.

I can't believe
how raw I feel
despite the length
of unwound time.

The gripping heart,
like fingers
squeezing tight,
the same flow up
behind the eyes,

the same sensation
around the throat
like one about to choke,
like the inhalation
of flameless smoke,

the opening up
of wounds one thought
were healing,
that rawness,
that deep plunging in,
that cold hurt feeling
still sinking in.

O my dear one,
my dead son,
O you just beyond
my reach or seeming so,
tell me where you are
that I may go.

No, no,
I know,
time's hand
will tick it
soon enough,
I guess,
whether months
or years or countless
decades, like ocean's wide.

Still raw,
still seeking
that place to weep,
that place to hide.