Death has left its imprint on me so much I
don’t know who is touching me inside anymore.

Certainly it’s another presence,
a voice apart from God.

Or is God the sum total of
all my known deaths?

My soul is an oarless canoe
afloat a lake of tears

seeking both initiation
and response to steer it.

Every death is almost next to me
entered gradually,  disappeared,

not gone. Internalized.  
Just almost next to me-

done being themselves,
but not being part of me.

Sometimes the separation,
the loneliness is so extreme

that I am moved
by almost everything,

the body of life not
touching against me,

just moving the canoe
along.