After he died
I saw you
sinking

slowly,
at first,
quietly.
Expressionless.
without the
flailing of arms
you were falling.

You didn't even try to
catch your
balance as
the sinkhole
pulled you down
into a darkness
so deep
that

nothing exists

nothing
long enough
to touch
the bottom
where you sat
and where you
met demise

You were such
a beautiful
woman
&
so far down
that you
couldn't
remember
the sky.

When I read
your
tarot
and I placed the cards in a
Celtic Cross

I pulled the Hanging
Man,
The Emperor...
The Hermit and then,
Death.

I see what you're doing.

I see where you hide.

I see that you're burdened by
the past that spun around you, out of your control- a child
who
was shown a world that
often touches in a way
that is not kind-

that is this world
and
I'm a part of it
too.

Hold any card
you want,
my love,

touch any card of
mine.

Hold me
to your chest
and feel the love
that life can
give
a
soul
like yours
who holds the
marks of
many ghosts
existing in
the past

I'll hold out my empty hands
for you

to fall into
when you
can
finally
open
your eyes.

The moths fly in
to catch the
light
because I leave
the windows
open.
I find them
fallen on my
sill,
hard and crisp
as death-
dried flowers
losing color,
fading away.

I always leave
my windows open
and let everything
in.

the animals
the light
the smoke from a
neighbor's chimney
or a fire burning
far away-
the moths
the wasps
the black beetles and
gnats
friendships and
falling outs and
you.

you are not excluded.

I always keep my
porch light on,
my windows propped
up
letting the world see
everything I am,
slither in,
crawl in,
waltz or
saunter in I
still
can't shut
the
window

I'm so afraid of
everything leaving the way
it comes:

suddenly
suddenly
suddenly through an
open window

and here I am trying
not to be a
moth
who looks for the light and a
rip in the screen,
and gets too close
and flies in, head first
without restraint,
she incinerates

Life is so bright and
I am so open,
propped open,
stationary and
liberated

as an open window.

You have me
chasing words as if
they're already
poetry,
sifting through
my index of
ways to explain what
you've done to me,
tie them to a hook,
throw the line,
& wait for prose

I'm so prone to wilting
in the sun,
by the lake,
because my skin
is made of
Morning Glories
and you've blasted me with
every type of sun the desert
has
to offer

Now I'm catching words like I'm fishing
for poetry to
feed
my need
to hold you in
a boat and then tell the
world how I love you.

Before you died,
you told me to
stir the *** more-
to find a
collection of
spoons and constantly
stir away

what work, it is
to stand over a steaming,
boiling,
unpredictable
cauldron of hopes
and desires-
of possible failures and
heart breaks
and to continue to push the spoon
scrape the spoon against
the metal

if you don't stir
don't push
don't consistently
tend to soup
it will stay stuck
on the bottom.