waterhold blue

a poem

i was with E for 20 years and we were in love. we were in love in a way i don’t know i’ve seen anyone else be in real life. we raised each other we raised babies we raised pets we raised hell we raised a life out of little left. i’ve been thinking that grieving us is practice for my own death. it is a grief so profound i can’t articulate it and poetry only comes close, or music. i’ll forever be deeply grateful and astonished we became what we were that we had what we did and forever grieving that it died. there is a waterhole, a cenote, i fall into, it is made of everything we felt together, and it is an entire universe i carry but cannot touch. i listened to ethel cain while writing this poem. grief is so repetitious and so this repeating pattern of images and actions spiral down with me in the waterhole, trying to express the inexpressible.

Losing losing losing

Going going going

Gone gone gone

A long life dead

Long live the dead

Long you live in my head

My heart my heart my heart

Beat beat beat

Beat beat beat me

Beat beat beat me

Bleeding bleeding bleeding

Dying dying dying

Waning long live dying

The air crying

Nightrolls sky dawning

Hunter calling

Calling calling calling

Running running running

Nowhere nowhere nowhere

Ankles hung wrists undone

Your eyes mine eyes

Spinning spinning spinning

Wrench wrench wrench

Lost again lost again losing again

Dim light backbone echo

Your knuckles in my rib

Sunshine hairs on your arm

The blood of our baby

Desert night in rain

Bodies together bodies together

Your eyes mine your eyes mine

I never understood time

A universe inside i will always

I will never

You will always

You will never

A universe between

Your tears in my mouth

A men a men a men

The mountain the lion

Waning long love dying

Losing losing losing

Waterhole black blue me you

Drowning in me drowning you

In me you in me you in me you

My blues blackened blue eyes

Black end black end black end