Prayers in Boxes (an unfinished poem)

This poem is unfinished.  It's a recent piece and will likely be revised many times before I am satisfied that it's finished.  But I wanted to share it anyway.

Prayers in Boxes

My hands,
once supple and strong,
now aged and aching,
life dusty books from their shelves,
fit them carefully into boxes,
tape them closed,
label them with a black Sharpie,
the smell of which slices through
the smell of dust and mold
and love grown old.

There are cobwebs in my hair
and tears in my throat.

On one shelf,
alongside books about writing,
I find the prayer journal I made him
I-don’t-remember-how-many years ago.
I flip through its yellowed pages,
touched that he kept it all this while,
and at the same time so aware
he never wrote a word
on those carefully crafted pages.

That was the problem all along,
of course,
I realize
as I tuck the journal into a box
with other books
and seal the top with tape.

To Carry On

Your memories are like moths

beating their wings around my head

as if I am a beacon of light

but I am shrouded in fog

and the horn fails to blow

and the load is heavy

but I carry you everywhere I go

Praying in the Mission Church

Her face is like a pecan,

shelled and weathered.

Her legs are the roots of a cypress tree,

bent a little at the knees, but still strong.

She walks three miles to the mission church,

kneels at a pew in the back row to pray.

She prays for her son, that he might stop living

at the bottom of a bottle.

She prays for her daughter,

who long ago left for the iron city.

She prays for the child she lost in the winter of ’25.

The dusty light from the small high window

wraps around her like a blanket.

Grieving

It’s like diving deep in a pool,

the way chlorine burns the sinuses.

The salt of tears is like that,

how it stings my eyes, my throat.

Too, there is that same muffled quality

to everything, and that same pressure

in my chest, like holding breath too long

underwater.  I cannot seem to break through

to the surface.  I cannot shatter this membrane

that stretches over everything.

Strawberry Fields

for my grandmother

You fled this hospital bed today,

Left for the strawberry fields,

Fled this ugliness, indifference, and pain,

Left the flood plain of our tears.

The sunshine gates opened up for you,

Welcomed you like a long lost child

To the red and wild strawberry fields.

You left us with tears in our hands.

Inferno

Words streamed like tears from my lips

As I knelt on the hot asphalt of the road

Burning my knees.

Oh no oh no oh no

And the neighbors gathered ‘round

Their faces flat as clouded glass

As I scooped you into my arms

Lifted you still warm and soft and whole

Into my arms

Hugged you to my heart

Oh no oh no oh no

I lifted my cries to the sky

And the birds swept down

And time spun itself into a tight spiral

Tomorrow this love

Will be fed into the inferno

And its loss will be eternal

But tonight I still hold you

My burned knees pressed against the floor

As I pray