Outside the sky clogs like bruises
I lay in bed and smoke, thinking
you have disappointed me for the last time

I dream I am in bed with a new lover
watching my reflection in his eyes

The way he says my name, like prayer
like scripture
as if he has come into a sacred place
and each touch must preserve even while it plunders

Last night the bed was a nest of nerves and wrong turns
knees bumping out of rhythm
the scraping of teeth
my ring catching your skin

And the red luminous glow of the alarm clock
measuring the long hours of frustration

Then the crack of a beer can opening
and the sound of your ****
splashing across the toilet seat
in the dark

And in that moment I knew
the problem was you

and not

the absence of my *******.

I find my mother in the strawberry field
Not far from the river, kneeling in the dirt

the sun beats down her back
gray hair ruffling in a hot wind

It hasn’t rained in a month
and the earth is an old woman’s face,
cracked with longing

I kneel beside her, our hands on the dusty earth
This earth that she has dug every spring
kneeled upon every summer

Barefoot and sun burnt, plucking ripe red fruit
For pies and jams

Juice-stained lips and tired backs
My mother and her mother, on the porch
Sipping Sherry in sunsets of July’s and Augusts, year after year
Comparing blisters, freckles, wrinkles, lives
Buckets of strawberries overflowing in the kitchen sink

This year the strawberries are withered
*****, red raisins on my tongue
That taste bitter and sharp

I watch my mother, keening softly on the ground
Her heart peeled open and raw

I whisper to her, The dead don’t live very far away

Her swollen grey eyes search the field across the river
As if she expects to see Grandma standing there
Waving, mouthing soundless words on the air

I know when it’s her turn to change worlds, it will be me,
Kneeling here, in the sun’s bright assault
My own daughter by my side,
Witness to this grief,

Her soft, comforting voice, telling me,
The dead don’t live very far away.

There are as many ways to love
as there are people in this world,
and just as many ways to say
'I love you';

But there is only one way
to be in love -
only one way
to be true.