For Jennifer

You can't know that I know.
Years later my heart can still be bruised for you.
Suddenly in the sweeping of a porch,
or the lazy glance to the lake
from a kitchen window,
Eye wets.  
Throat dries.
These were your walls to touch,
and your rooms to warm.
From this hill, your views to the world.
You built yourself into this house.
You are steeped into the creaking floorboards,
chipped tiles, crooked cupboards.
All woven from your dreams, never mine.
Thank you for giving me your treasure.
I'm hardly worthy.  

For Aoyola

You said so little as I carried away your precious creation.
Into these foreign hands you placed the colored beauty that had journeyed from your eye to your heart to your hand.
Born from a deep place that no one can ever find.
Taken from there by you
And brought to solid Earth.
You can't know that I know,
That you sometimes see those colors again behind your closed eyes.
My face is long faded away,
Still you see every brushstroke you put to life in that painting I carried away that still, hot day.  
Thank you for your gift.
If you could know how cherished it is.

For Anna

You cannot know because I cannot tell you.  Your pain has soaked into my bones,
and I'll not be rid of it.  
I feel you crying sometimes,
And your tears run hot down through me too.  
They pool in that corner of soul I gave to you, without ever wanting to.
We are nearly strangers,
And ever will be.
But on those too hard days,
in that unbearable moment,
When grief floods in,
And you start to crumble apart,
I am three miles away, and right beside you.
Our tears can never stop flowing,
It's a Mother's loss, and only a Mother will know.
The deepest and never healing wound that can never be borne alone.  
Bleed a little through me dear one.
Let me share your sorrowful burden.
This is what I want to take from you.