poetry fix: dia de los muertos
Arms heavy with marigolds
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}