poetry fix: dia de los muertos

 

 

 

Arms heavy with marigolds

and sugar skulls, I visit our 

salt spray grave again,

not expecting to find any

traces of us on that

cold, stony beach.

I curse the brutal

candy corn hangover that

splits my head in two, ruthless

like the waves that had

drowned out your voice and

the wind that carried away

those last threads between us,

the stubborn ones that clung like cobwebs

but were just as fragile in the end.

I knew our slow unraveling

would end in a single moment,

and when it finally loomed

the clouds cried along with me

as windshield wipers thumped

and a ruthless reverse Oz-mosis

drained the afternoon of crimson

and goldenrod until earth and sky

mirrored the gray inside me

without even leaving an

ironic trace of rust behind.

As you signed your name, I was

afraid to look up —

afraid your lips would be sewn together

with big, loose stitches,

afraid your sunken eyes would see that

even though I’d said good-bye to the

ghost of us long ago,

I was still afraid I’d forgotten how to live.

                                                           yvonne melania lieblein

{sugar skull image from indulgy.com}