I learned no one gets to stop for death.
When someone is dead, only the body is buried
or burned.
I can listen to Winter only so many times before it loses
effectiveness
or the dogs demand out or the cat cries for a morsel,
anything
just please goddammit feed me
and turn off the fucking Vivaldi for crap’s sake,
the record is scratched and skips.
Momma, she signed her cards Momma.
Daddy signed Valentines with EL.
Cleaned out Momma’s books today, a card fell out,
and there he was.
Ever Loving.
Daddy screamed at me for the first time in my life.
Momma kept a journal.
9/18/1981
“Hearts do not break,” my mother said. “That is a silly and dramatic fallacy.”
But I know they do.
The sound of breaking is very soft –
It is like the breaking of a butterfly’s wing – almost a sigh
I heard it for the first time on August 12, 1928 when I looked at my brother getting off that train from Birmingham.
And I heard it again on May 5, 1975 – inside me.
What I want to know is this
After 365 days fill with sorrow,
do I have to start all over again or can it be finished?