She was a diver
Because
As her toes left the board
Pointing
The curve of her back
Bending
She would begin to fall
Free – form
Freed from
Her promise to keep her feet
On the ground
Because on that day she
Was a diver
And it was her joy to fall.

An off-white pew smudged
by fingerprints of all mourners
who come through
dirt poor people pushed
into this narrow hallway
wreathed with dusty fake lilies - Meant to
Honor the dead.
Two names written in the book
But the other lines are empty
as the gap between Front Row Blue-Haired Lady,
whose name I know,
and the Back-Row Tattoo/Piercing Crowd that is
15 rows deep and
15 rows weep
because my cousin is gone-
and the address printed on the memorial is wrong.

I am a seashell
draining on the shore
emptied out by you,  
the wave receding sandy floor
-another opened door, now closing just in time-
back to the breakers,
pulled out to sea,
back to the cormorants,
farther still from me.

My days are spent among
Triggers and Fragments
Mirror shards glued to a wooden frame
with a faux metal placard  proclaiming Faith!
You must have it.

My nights are strewn confetti and black lace pinafores
shoved into the crack at the door
but the party is still bumping, a broken record singing
Have yourself... Have yourself...
A merry little Christmas.

My mornings are shattered by the call to begin again
again again again
Scratch the frost from the windshield, turn the key, close the door,
That same song is playing- this time on the radio-
Left turn signal blinking like Triggers and Fragments,
Have yourself
A merry little
Christmas
now.

Understand,
if you are to try
at times, Blue-Blacks pervade my canvases,
Blushing Pinks and Blood Red
retreat from stapled corners in waste-not, want not Oh my God, I want that
One in the olive recliner there,
staring bold as Brass in
Brass-colored hair,
Blood red is back
She left Blushing Pink way behind when she went
Streaking with perfect line and form, challenging with truth or dare while coloring a sailors red sky morn, to warn to warn to warn
The Blue-Blacks are coming
The Blue-Blacks are here
The Blue-Blacks are running
the game from in here.

Notes passed in class
notes scribbled in ink
Notes to remind
notes to forget
yesterday's to do is tomorrow's regret

Tell me they will remember me
Tell me the song they play at my Ending will be cool and not that one by Norah Jones.
Play my ashes Hey Jude, or,  I Get By With a Little Help-
from my friends,
Who will know when I am gone?
I got the invite in a song at a wedding in Mobile bay,
Maybe CCR or the Fleetfoxes gave it away:
the hints in these notes passed in class,
notes passed  on from the verse
notes to remember, letters to address,
yesterday's to do is tomorrow's forget.
And all I can say in my defense
(of this regret) is that I wanted
One song more, the one that wouldn't end.

The sun does not touch me, neither does the green,
The wind turns the heat but grazes not for me.
The dogs ride the lanes, lapping smiles outside squares
Of windowpanes which tow them from over here to there;
I wish to be a dog, for dogs know not of rage or kiln,
Who bay the moon yet see the dark and shoo the lonesome kin.
The night drags on and in between the hours slow then grow,
In Interstices, sore tendons pop, the cells have shrunk too small.
Now lichens; blue, green, yellow, red still grow despite the hand
That peels them back from rocks and limbs; a forest drowned in sand,
Keening high, keening low, it sings the only song it knows: no, no,
I cannot die, I cannot go, I grow to fill the empty chambers,
neglected for too long.
I hate the night and day and more, I hate the rising hope
Which feeds this restless hour but gives not light nor scope.