Someone
is lifting people from my life
between blinks,
stripping familial faces from earth
as erasable ink images,
one
by
one---
gum drops plucked,
as soulless grapes

no longer fruitful,
absence multiplies---
divided by youthful apparitions,
stunted ambitions,
and
sorrow

Someone
is whittling my family tree
with tomorrow’s steady hands
so quickly my name rises to the top,
as cream
scraping heaven with barefoot screams

while innocence weeps