My first winter without you
I spent New Years with my hands in an ancient wall
and the stone set my eyes on fire
each a candle, one burning for shabbat,
one burning for you like a yartzeit that wouldn’t dwindle
mourning your hands, my face buried in your chest.
You are
so tall.
You were drinking somewhere
and you didn’t want my prayers.
My first winter without you
I filled notebooks and found new arms
I learned what it is
to be afraid of dying young
I learned what it is
to feel home
and you
are not it.
My first spring without you
I floated on the Dead Sea at dawn
and wiped the oil off the wounds in my knees
I prayed with my eyes closed in the marketplace and
filled my fists with the fruits of the season.
I ate books for breakfast.
I spent nights in dim hidden rooms playing bongos until my palms shook
My first spring without you,
I wrote my first song.
I waltzed in the middle of a street party
where the DJ blasted some pounding techno anthem of a budding culture and
I, behind a feathered mask,
kept slow measured time and watched the bloom of my own.
My first summer without you
I had a beer poured over my head by a boy whose
wide shoulders and broad-mouthed accent sent me
leaping back in gaping toothy laughter. I shook
my hair out and chased him into the the Armenian quarter,
but he didn’t run. Daytime
we all baked in our own salt,
marinated in sweet new friendships and nostalgia for
some California coastline - for nights in your living room
with its tin walls and landscapes taped up.
If I looked through your couch cushions now
I might find, I’d think, some bobby pin or blonde hair.
On your wrist a hairband whose
owner you’d forgotten.
My first summer without you
I was spit on by a stranger for the first time, and a
man chased after the car, holding his kippah on his head,
his anguished yelp filling with dust and car exhaust while my
things sat in boxes in America, not belonging to me anymore,
or me not belonging
to them.
My first fall without you
it rained so softly the children went outside and opened their mouths
This week a man told me that redemption
is remembering who you were before you lost yourself.
I remember who I was before you,
something gentle, something the
very lightest shade of grey.
You would not recognize me if you saw me now,
calm in the eyes.
Three years together, one year apart,
and not a single poem for you,
until now.
Happy birthday.