the linguistics of death

in language

tense is the time of action
not the time of death

if there were no past tense
could anyone ever truly

disappear

and how would we feel today
if we had no way to put into words
what happened yesterday

last month
last year
or when we were children

why can’t language consistently aspire
to keep us alive

imagine no simple past (he was)
and no past perfect (he had been)

only he is and he will be

in that world our hearts would not ache
the way they now ache, ached,

have ached, will ache, and will have ached

we are bound by finite forms
and conjugations that allow
for the lives of our loved ones

to come to an end

and that makes language useless to explain
the chest-crushing loneliness
and the need to put our rage

into question form

why didn’t he—
how come I—
when will this—

can’t you see that without the past
we would be invincible

love and sorrow can begin in an instant
and yet they take forever to go away

perhaps the only reason to stay alive
from this moment on
is because we are free

for when one has survived the darkest hours
and lost what we have lost
there is nothing left to fear

VALENTINE

To my beloved
my be loved
my be all and end all love

Believe me when I say
I am still chasing you after all these years
and like a forest fire I move
faster uphill

There is never an absence of song
when you are within my view
But there is a part of me that cannot stop grieving
every moment I don’t spend with you

If I accepted the idea that love was impermanent
my longing for you would already be gone
But here I am word painting you a valentine
and still wishing I was in your arms

Had we never met I might be invincible
but my spirit looks for yours in every room
And whether near or far I belong to you forever
the way the tide belongs to the moon

♥ ♥ ♥

SHE DOES NOT DREAM OF IGLOOS

She asked him to meet her in Sausalito so they could sit on a bench
and stare at the Golden Gate Bridge.
She didn’t want to talk she just wanted to hold his hand.
He never came.
She thinks about how only love can make a person believe in love.
She thinks about his hands and where they are now.
Out there in the world without hers in them.
She wonders if he knows what has been lost.
There is no word for yesterday in the Eskimo language.
But there were laws that governed him.
Laws she would have complied with.
He thought she didn't understand
but she knows that sometimes words aren’t necessary
and that sometimes you can touch someone more deeply
by not touching them at all.
Now even the letters are gone.
Drowned.
She has no record of this ever happening.
What she wouldn’t give
for a haiku valentine
an everlasting hallelujah
and a lock of his hair.
She does not dream of igloos
she dreams of the way
gravity pulls a hammer towards a nail.
She would rather be a carpenter than an Eskimo.
Broken homes can be renovated
but no one would exist without history.
It is better to build things
that can’t one day melt away.
We are what we love
after all.

SOMEONE ALWAYS HAS TO DIE

At first I did nothing. I wanted to write a poem about the
intruder who broke into my car and took my yoga mat and a
bouquet of lilacs even though my computer was on the seat
beside them. I did not want to write about love, loss, or grief.

And then I realized two things.

First, I am a woman filled with sparks, shadows, and the
crimson sorrows of all of my ancestors. Love is an element of my body.

Second, one way or another
someone always has to die in the end.

* * *

Wait. How’s this for pathetic? He was two steps away from
victory when he pulled the trigger this time.

A catastrophic failure of epic proportion.

Naturally this stirs up some grief.

Or is it pity?

Perhaps this is a poem about pity.

* * *

Dig: Larceny and murder are still against the law but suicide is
just a bold way of speeding up the inevitable. In other words
don’t kill your lover when you can kill yourself instead.

But before you do, consider putting your dreams up for sale on
eBay. I would like to buy them and set them on fire. I would
like them to keep me warm when you are gone.

What else can I do? My grandiose ambitions have always been
set on love and sonance. (Arguably a catastrophic failure of
epic proportion in and of itself.)

Then again, most of us have only ever accomplished anything
because we were terrified we wouldn’t.

I don’t care about the stupid yoga mat.
It’s the irreplaceable items over which I shed my tears.
It’s the people that I memorize.

* * *

Cold comfort is an oxymoron.

I will live forever on your skin but my eyes have been swollen
too many times and I have nothing left to prove.

I already got a new yoga mat and lilacs grow wild in my
backyard but I do not know if you and I will meet again and
that pretty much sums up the ridiculous sadness of life.

Some people never learn.
I am not one of those people.

Maybe if I leave my pity in the backseat an intruder will steal
that too.

(Insert self-inflicted gunshot wound here.)

And then his brain splattered into a million little pieces
just like my heart.

I told you.

Some things happen before they begin.

MURDER BALLAD

Death is so much easier than love
and the only real way
to be set free

But my dear killer
I wish you’d looked me in the eye
as you dove the knife into my chest

I had imagined a more natural death
than to be slain by the one I love
with a cold electronic No

If only you hadn’t been so fickle
and I hadn’t been so unwavering
I would still be alive today

And though love and ghosts
can survive on wishful thinking
I’m afraid I could not

My heart looked like a mosaic when it broke
The fracturing and fissures my only source of light

Like any romance between a candle and a drop of rain
we made love as only fire and water can

But you will never be any greater
than the sum of your missed opportunities
until you stop missing them

And as for me?

My only mistake
was believing you when you said
you would never hurt me again

My only mistake
was loving you more
than you love yourself

With you I have felt the loneliest
With you I have felt the most alive

And so the refrain goes

Why did I have to be the lesson
that you refused to learn?

FUBAR

I gave my song to a scared and wounded soldier. He thought my song was a gun. He took my song to war and it was killed in battle. Now the weight of this defeat has penetrated the rules of my body. Penetration is the melody I lost. Your lips are the melody I hear in my sleep. Your lips would rather kiss a mouse than a butterfly. Aim higher. Like the songs that are written on your bones. The freedom songs. The redemption songs. Don’t tell me you’re not good enough. I have tasted the thoughts that live inside your mouth. I have traced the life in the lines of your shoulder blades. Let me press my hands to your temples and feel the rhythms. Yours and the ones that echo from your father’s drum. He is the master of this war. Taught you how to point your weapons at the ones who love you most. Stand back or I’ll shoot he says. Like father like son. Everything you want from him is everything I want from you. Funny how that happens. Underestimation is the opposite of penetration. Sound is the opposite of rejection. Remember you can choose your own legacy. Si vis amari, ama. Would it make it easier if I told you I know how you feel? It’s hard to keep fighting when all you want to do is sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to the one who left you in the trenches. Singing changes the way you breathe. Breathing changes the way you feel. Fathers change the way you love. Fear changes the way you live. Living changes the way you penetrate the body. Penetrating the body changes the way you penetrate the soul. Going to war changes everything and when everything changes nothing survives unless both sides surrender. I offered to surrender everything to you. I laid my song at your feet. You thought my song was a gun. You took my song to war and it was killed in battle. Now I live differently in my body. I live differently in my soul. I sleep with a white flag in my hand. I dance with a bullet in my chest. I wait for this war to end. I wait for you to come home. I wait for a day that will never be born. I wait.


*

A REMARKABLY STRANGE AND MOVING POEM

To Begin:

Asleep in your arms, even if just a wish
I awoke to a letter from your father
sewn onto the pillowcase beside me

Please take care of my little boy, he wrote
especially when the days get shorter
and the leaves begin to die
He glows inwardly and you glow out
and together you illuminate my darkness

Under the Pale Shafts of the Moon:

I stashed the letter deep in your voice box
and could feel the whole world tense up
inside your chest

When I tried to take the letter back
I reached into your throat
and pulled out a river instead

I guess we better build a boat, you said

Upon Starting Construction:

I hammered your name in nails
across my chest

and noticed that the object you were building
looked more like a coffin than a boat

No matter, I thought,
both will carry us
both will float

On That Note:

Burying grief is like swallowing dynamite
after it’s already been lit

I would rather navigate a thousand storms
than ponder regret

I would rather drive for hours on the hottest day of the year
in a car without air conditioning
than not be the one who gets to pick you up

But now I am Digressing:

Emotional restraint is for anchormen and pilots

I type so I don’t explode

The point is:

I feel safe with tools in my hand
I feel free when I use my words

Now hear this:

I will never help you put nails in that coffin
not even if you tell me that we’re dead

In Conclusion:

The river is the fear.
We can sail above it.