Don't ask, don't tell,
Sweet coyote, desert owl.
Cactus eyes, sand-dune skin
The warmth throughout, the heat within.

Before this
There was infinity, reachable by tiny fingers
And wide eyes
Scraped knees and
Bobbing heads disappearing into the trees.
'Nilla wafers and nap time
Took us off through the wildest jungles
Sent you drifting with a patched eye across the ocean
With ol' blue beard

One day, stark as the contrast between warmth
And a dash of ice-water
Every illusion used to protect, to comfort
Became as crystal clear
As shattering windshield glass.

I remember that day
I remember the clutch of fabric in my small hands
The spicy, familiar scent as I pushed it into my face
Feeling no warmth behind it, no enclosure of arms
Only the carapace
Your long-sleeved second skins
That filled the rich mahogany dresser
Long after you departed with the last you'd ever wear.

Not touching the cold stranger in the box made it real;
Nor the sound of it's door as it closed.
No, not even the earth piled atop the pile of
Crushed roses
The stone bearing our names.

It was the sweet, lingering scent
The essence you left behind
That had already begun to fade;
The scent that was as unique as rain on fallen leaves
Would one day leave
Just as you did.

I created a girl
From word and lines
From paragraphs.

With characters, I shaped her face
Her long dark hair
Gold eyes
Her strength
And the inevitable weakness
We share.
I learned to love her
As a daughter, for she is mine
From my own hands
From my own heart and head
A product of a story
That needed to be told.

I loved her, and she taught me
Through her own struggles
Her own losses
That it is possible to move forward
After the end of the world
Ice will thaw and spring will follow the winter
Bodies return to the earth and feed the flowers
And love is never lost,
Only tucked away into a small pocket
Somewhere in the mysterious red ***** in our chests
Where it takes shape as another
More bearable appreciation
One that is not all flowers and lore
Or clammy hands and starry eyes.

If she can move on, when beauty seems withered
Than I will follow her steps
Beyond the last page
And walk out of that story
Back into my own
Where you and I will always occupy
A small page some place
A few sentences that had to end
To form a paragraph.

Or a Poem.