What if she’s me? The woman screaming without reprieve?
And what if she’s you? The body beneath the sheets lifted by strangers?
Every time the phone rings, I see in my minds eye, your prone form
fallen, or hurt, somehow
this fear I inhabit is years in coming
your fragility creeps up on us like a wettened shroud
once so strong, you’d take me in your bronze arms and
press me to you where the sound of your powerful
heart beat assured me nothing would erase or remove
your certainty
then the sick hiss and whisker of machines
a tube down your throat, a glazed look, no recognition
slack hand filled with needles, empty eyes void of life
I felt you moving away even as you stayed
gone and still there
a stranger in your face, your expressions glazed
even the taste of your lips changed
as if blistering over from sudden Winter storm.
As time ticks down, we look up
to salvation, prayer and hope when
maybe nobody listens
I stand over you as you sleep
your little bluebird chest rising in dream
I want to
climb on the bed and laugh as once we did
curling around each other in chased game
oh so much joy in one shared heart
when i was your girl and you were my
evening rose
now the dust has settled and we still
scattered pictures, cannot see clearly
all around are shadows and shorn warnings
easy to lose ourselves in fears glory
like gathering a bird who has fallen from glass
stunned and dying pressed in our hands
death on us now, like unsought reflection
glinting, glinting, glinting.
I miss you, the you I knew
better than I know myself
who would turn in her sleep and
touch me without waking
such was our eternal fuse
one into the other, no boundaries
and time is a fickle fellow
taking you and keeping you sickened
welded to pills and paper casts of closed theatres
we stand apart, at times nearly severed
I would sacrifice all to make you well
but i have given everything i know
it is clear we go in different directions
one is the end and you drift like
wind on frigid water
while i continue to swim upstream
i cannot, you see
let go
your bright feathers dull
and still i look up
when birds fly into glass
