~
On a clear day
I can see my sister

It's between six and seven o'clock
and a beautiful expanse of water, reflecting her cultivated shores

a nod, a smile,
through the vapor

castles in the air, ruling over
the available light

then in a moment, she's lost
half her height

and bent into arcades, like those
of a Roman aqueduct

evaporate before me she will

the fading of family, a returning
to cold white at the dawning
of an unfriendly expanse
~

~
in limbo, paralyzed by inaction
and unsure of how to move forward
moodier and more menacing than ever before
a delicate state of mind is explored
all about seeing the beauty
in the darkness of futility
digging wells and all to happy
to throw us all down there
as images painted on an ancient vase, exploring
what it means to be frozen
in a moment of time for all eternity
~

The conversation lasted into the
long tooth hours of the night.
She read her textbooks and then heard a mouse with its tail barely caught in a glue trap. It squealed as if it were dying. In my heart I believed it was savable. In the agony I imagined him dreaming of fields and insects and seeds.
She had these cold gray eyes.
In one quick movement, she took off
one of her clodhoppers and smashed its brains out. She cleaned her shoe with a tissue, she said, I neither hate the mouse nor love it, it's just a thing.  At that moment I was pretty sure she was psychotic.
We're both drunk, I kept watching her *** in that tight  black dress.
She said in a very automated voice, I suppose you want to **** me now and then slithered out of the dress.
***** is *****
But I couldn't do it. I told her to put her clothes back on and not **** anything on the way out.

Sometimes, when stillness of the heart
is not enough, mind extends to landscape
unbounded and floats like a helium balloon
in the depth of sky.

It begins with streaks of light, the naming
of trees, ponds open like black blossoms,
misted lakes, the sea placing its many fingers
on the endless revels of gold bays.

The road may be mossy and slippery
as old stones ; rows of summer
swallows may rise from random wires.
As mountain strider or keeper of forests,
let love lead me south to warm nights
where stars burn through clouds.

Let the voyage end in tender words,
perhaps a clasp or a kiss. Let the faithful
ebb and flow of time join the fragments
of me in exile from myself.

The summer he expired was the summer she thought hard
About the Autumn breezes in his hair,
And the Springtime words she locked away.
The winter was cold, yet side by side they flourished.
Pokemon cards and stolen kisses on cheeks.
Tree forts and dance battles.
Makeup and gowns.
Homework and swimming pools-
The life he left behind.

As she thought, she held her face taunt.
Her thoughts escaping through her cracked skin facade.
I asked her today, a year after passing, "do you miss is smile, his laugh, his presence? Does the loss hold grief in it's grip?"

She glanced away then held my gaze, and suddenly I knew the world had churned on.