Wings folded
like a Priest at prayer,
the moth celebrates
Mass on the altar
of the lightbulb's
yellow glare.

It was such a little plate,
fragile as a flower.
It gave me peace
to sit and gaze at it by the hour.
It had a chip, but then,
people have chips too -
ones that can't be repaired
with the strongest glue.
My hands would tremble
when I picked it up.
Somewhere along the way
I had broken the matching  cup,
leaving me with a single plate
to love and treasure.
Old hands shake with pain.
I dropped it on the floor,
shattering it too badly to repair.
Someday someone will discover
when I have died...
a tattered old envelope
with my broken plate inside.

How I laughed as you threw rocks into the river.
Your little hand lost each stone on the backward stroke;
you waited for the splash that never came - puzzled.
You learned to count by picking up sticks for the fire,
but then you would want different sticks...
and dump your yellow bucket and start all over again.
The day you climbed into the huge plastic tub
where the was was soaking...that memory lives on.
Like Lucy stomping grapes, you danced around.

Every night we would pray and snuggle like spoons
in our tiny tent.
I would sing “The Rose” and “Amazing Grace”
while you mimicked with your sweet half-sung sounds.
It has taken ten years for me to be able to say your name,
or write about you in my endless stream of poetry.
But it will be only in the endless death of eternity
that you will live somewhere other than my heart.
I pray for a heaven, wanting to have the hope
of holding you on some distant cloud as you
throw stars into the limitless sky.