This Desert I am Crossing on my Knees

A loveliness that was terrifying because it arose so clearly from her willingness to die in order to live however briefly on her own terms. 

Oh my grace, et cetera.

Hospital smells in the 1970s. My paternal grandmother's smile, especially when drinking, especially when her sisters were around. Sometimes at night when I put my hand out in the darkness another hand is there to take it.

You are not as lonely as you say you are, is what we are meant to tell each other but don't.

Remember light from the fish tank for the first time? My son floating farther and farther away from me, until all that remains is a green dot in relative folds and the sound of a man weeping, me.

Perhaps there are no men after this.

Going out earlier to visit the horses in order to stand quietly near the raspberries in order to watch sunlight illuminate the many horizons enclosing us. 

Lord from this desert I am crossing on my knees I beg you, let this be the end of "or else." 

How you showed me your mind Rûaħ and years later your body and how even now I am in you.

God is beyond.

That which teaches us how to go beyond the conviction that only in the other's arms will we know completion. "I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me."

Perilous hope, pearl-shaped wholes.

It gets easier to go when you remember you have feet. Cello accompaniments we haven't listened to in almost fifteen years. The many ways my many cousins find to die alone.

"Go your own way," as if.