I imagine you buried
in deep pine.
Lowered into breathing earth.

Does regret expand into a lake
becoming a hole in your chest?
I reach in and all I find are evergreen branches.
Breathless lungs, we are embedded in you skin.

Your heart is a fist,
sand  gritty in my teeth and stones
are heavy in our bellies.

I hear your voice over the VCR,
turn away, turn away,

deep,
deep,
deep.

I imagine because
forgiveness needs the morning,
and you were gone with the night.

Gone as the sun came up and
we head whispers of you between
the covers.

turn away, turn away.

I know how to feel nothing small,
and you felt nothing.
We say goodbye in whispers,
and are reminded of you by soft fleshy parts of our hearts
and scratches on VCR tapes,

your voice an endless echo.
This is our past we are still learning.