january:
the skytrain paused, mid-air
we hovered above burnaby
glittering
i remember: the hair twist, the mirror,
abandon & how the right song could
summon it from him,
&, o, the minutes before
the homeward bus
how the last of the best
of us
could be pressed between them
february:
three times, now, i have returned
to the bottomless mulligan
of family
my pride, an upheaval
alongside the winter roots
that blocked the garden
from the coming light
a backspace of id
and a healing over
of years, of haze,
of old growth
march:
the slow animal will
reach furthest
once a year, this lessens
the ratio of defeat
the open door became the village,
a finding of my people
somewhere, etta james was singing
april:
do you ever feel like the honeycomb
whose keepers only come once?
the world sidelongs your life
long enough to roll its eyes
& sigh in wonder
at the hum of you,
then departs.
lindy, this was the last time
i broke bread with you,
the last time i felt the settled glow
of my own body around my bones.
may:
june:
july:
august:
september:
october:
november:
they don’t teach us
how to write about illness
so i must now guess.
december:
it takes a lot to have a body
it takes a lot to be the lighthouse
to eye the hurricane
and outwards the light
it takes a lot to walk straight
when the fog falls
in cities that ask for proof of all wounds
it takes a lot to hurt invisibly
it takes a lot to write a eulogy
and turn it into a prayer.
CarnivalDark 