what becomes of the moon

on old nights like this

where dark hours hang

miles deep and heavy

with the kind of quiet

only owls understand?

lah 7.29.18

i.

there's nothing left of me

       nothing but the hush

& the burden I've become

to myself

       half-bent, half-broken

there's no way to pretend

it didn't happen like this

ii.

the mourning leaf gives its color

to the slipstream

like the slow yellowing of a bruise

as it fades

       the roses laid to rest

iii.

this is when I would write a poem

& title it I'm running out of metaphors

for the way I ache -

       for how I hoard my pain

               for how it bitters the heart

iv.

these hours belonging to death

clutter the wind

scatter a language of grief

its lack of symmetry

       undoing my breath

v.

my voice is kept inside the feathers 

of a pillow

I bring down the birds from 

their branches

to nest in my open wound

to touch what it means

to die

vi.

       & this is how I pray

splay dark ink on

a disrupted paper-sky

the gravity of its stars

guides my strokes

underlining the black edge

of night

       kneel here

where the moon curves

softly

vii.

grass is always greenest where we bury

our babies

in memory of my baby boys, Jason & JonThomas. mommy misses you.

mommy loves you.

imagine surrender

     as white as truce

     as white as truth

from the attic

I pull down the stars

for you

     like fireflies in a jar of night

darkness dissolves our scars

suffocates our segregation

manipulates the distance

between us

as it salts the sheets

of our waiting bed

& we become the unstill

a blue crush of shadows

in a half-naked room

bending, writhing

against the skin of a musky moon

     come into me

as if you were wind

     stealing my breath

lah 6.18.17 ©®

ask me again

why the wounds

hold me here

like clots

& bruises

of another

ruined sky

with its

sharp edges

& its palette

of blackbirds

its long reach

of darkness

ask me again

why I cling

to the thunder

rioting the night

why I cling on

the edge of tremble

as ghosts look

straight through

the page where

this poem breaks

another mirror

because I will

write you seven

years in a language 

of stolen phrases

& forget-me-nots

as I tally fourteen

years of warning

signs in the way

knuckles & needles

have drawn a clef

of scars on

my bluing skin

in this space

between clouds

where I measure

the air & the

falling rain

as I plant my

suffering like

a promise in

a thicket that

waits to sprout

its roots in snow

to bristle the nest

in a branching pine

& crawl through

the wind stealing

my breath so

you can climb

the ladder of

my fractured ribs

wiggle like a worm

to a soft red apple

& fill the pretty

little holes in my

heart with wet matches

& hand-rolled

cigarettes

because you hate

everything you love

& my eyes taste

what we've broken

peppered with

salt to melt

the frost on

my bare feet

standing in

this puddle of ink

staining just beneath

my freckled flesh

with veins collapsed

from the sludge

with a throat

so full of hunger

lah  6.11.17 ○

soon again comes morning

& mourning comes

this day is

another day

is another shade of blue

after years of grieving, still

remains the grief

& everything about me 

is a pause, a comma

in a poem I am always

writing

about a wound that sunlight

can't heal 

another day

listening to the curtains lift

listening to the flowers bloom

loosening my wings

for flight

lah  6.9.17 ○

In loving memory of my son, JonThomas, 8-9-07

soon again comes morning

& mourning comes

this day is

another day

is another shade of blue

after years of grieving, still

remains the grief

& everything about me 

is a pause, a comma

in a poem I am always

writing

about a wound that sunlight

can't heal 

another day

listening to the curtains lift

listening to the flowers bloom

loosening my wings

for flight

lah  6.9.17 ○

I know

what went

missing

his mouth

swallowing

my mouth

biting my

tongue

squeezing

the ink

that settles

in the bent

parts of me

lah 5.15.17 ©®

come different, the same storm again

past tense of wind

tightening the rain on a dark house

where days turn into rooms with

long windows

where long moments suffocate

an unnoticed woman

as the light echoes sharp & spineless

deep in the periphery

dust settles the way plum blossoms

fell like haiku, candling the wax

of the poem unwritten & pinned to the skin

nine weeks north, sooner the shade thickens

to hold the shadows under the leaves

lah 5.14.17©®

the pitch of night is sweating me

again.

& I remember

how he strangled the light

from june

I remember the way he grunted

adjectives

&

the angle he spread my hip

sockets

&

how my breath bounced off

the stubble of his long

voice

& he's an anathema at the back of

my throat

I still can't allow myself

to swallow

a collection of black & blue reflections

that stare at me, echo in

my mirror

I try to pry myself from this wreckage I keep

bandaged like wounds

that won't heal

I see his face on the street, wearing the skin

of other men

& I wonder if my body will always

remember

what my mind will never

forget

or if one day my name might

break open

so all the colors of the storm

escape

lah  5.7.17 ©

this is the linger

           the roam

the slow fade of grey

matter

          & all that matters

unbalancing the nuance

of pause

a hyphen that rivals two words

like bookends

          an epigram

in the unnamed wind

          a hologram

that holds no color at all

this is the leaning barn

          the steeping tea

the aftermath of winter

to the juniper

          forgetting the fall

this is the wait

the way white clings on oleander

& its orphaned memories

& this

this defies the uncoupling

this becomes the distance of reach

in changing seasons

          the love of two hands

as if they could ever possibly anchor

the direction the moon

drifts

lah 4.18.17 ©

in dedication to some dear friends facing this disease.

I believe love conquers all.