making room for new growth

we all have a task we are working on

i cannot remember what

this pool is not a pool anymore

and you, my love are standing over a sink

hands rivered in diluted blood

you are working on something

and i can see it opening cuts on your fingers

i tell you to stop to bandage your wounds

you don’t want to but do

and i try to choose the soap that will sting the least to clean you

we sit in the sunroom on the couch

like the porches we grew up in

then i see only your face

and it is covered in black ants

you have fallen into a crack in the couch

disturbing an ant colony down there

i try to get you out so i can get them off

but you are stunned and it takes a while

i leaned over to whisper into your ear

and found you had crossed the pond

while my back was turned

and stood on higher ground

where you said you could see until tomorrow

and you tried to tell me

but the wind carried it away

and besides you were still standing beside me

to my left or to my right

for a time i stood on grief mountain

which i dragged into your soft little bed

then left on some roadside in iowa

or i dropped it when the bee stung me

and my face swelled with the moon

from where you stand you can finally see that my eyes are hazel not brown

and i will always look at you as if i am lying on the ground gazing up at you in the sycamore leaves sun shining through making everything translucent you were so beautiful when i saw you last you were not always beautiful to me and then you were

let it be autumn forever

let me sit in the hot sun

tempered by the shaded breeze

let me tend fires in the evenings

let my hair smell of oak smoke

that i can’t wash out

let our paths cross and cross and cross

i want to be buried beneath you

let my knife slice the squash

i will roast the seeds and save some to plant in the spring

with the chestnuts that i will sprout in the fridge

yes i can be like this

but i don’t want to be buried

i wanted to dig a grave

but it is too late

the corpses have already been made

i am remembering to be gentle

i am carefully plucking away the rotted roots

composting them

making room for new growth

for Asti

for greeting everything and everyone, even change, gently and with excitement, a heart full, and a wagging tail