I burnt the roof of my mouth again
On hot tomato soup
Like I do once or twice every other week.
You tell me to wait and remind me that
I am a Patient Person but I
Can’t
And to be honest,
I kinda like it

It is like, after your guts were ripped out, you go on this picnic with
no way to properly digest delicious picnic food while on a big bike,
because your tubes were ripped out by a Parisienne swinging a pike

What’s left of you is in boxes,
Mother-that-kissed-goodnight.
Who introduced us to stallions and
Bullet hole portraits of John Wayne.
How to be on trail. Avoid poison oak,
Ivy. How to avoid horse buck.

Your parents stopped praying
The rosary after you went terminal.
Reader who believed in a book
For her and a book for the kids.
Stephen King and R.L. Stine.

What remains of you are stills. Above the refrigerator.
Beside the TV.
One of when unseen bass swam through your shins.
Rivers rose and drowned the lilly pads.
Sunk the cattails. You wore the geranium dress,
Murky up to your knees. A hand on the dog.

You’re coffin’s in the ground,
Kathryn. The prenatal nurse.
The one who brought hers to
Rainbow island for fish and family,
Not for lighting clap and sideways rain.
But don’t worry, never mind that.

Thanks to cancer, you are bones.

Some believe you were reborn a cardinal. Nested
To watch your children listen for bats at dusk.

Their echoes unconfirmed,
And your songs too faint.

I wish I'd saved my best for you
Uncomplaining queen of my heart
There was a time

You deserve something less
wide bent noisy broken
Adonis no not quite that
but supple
firm and fresh

You bought as is
No returns
Never asked around whose
***** I'd been girt

Still I wish
it was you'd done the wearing
off the sparkle out the elastic
That every crease
was a day of your life

Sweet lady
Bargain hunter
Thrift store baby
What you get
Is all I've got
not
What you deserved
I'm what you bought
Hope you like it
*smile