INSIDE THE CIRCLE
Wednesday
morning
5 a.m. in Texas. High noon in Madrid. The moon
outside my window is full, a perfect circle shining
silver in a black black sky. The dawn, though coming,
cannot be seen, cannot be known, just now.
In two hours your body will rest where you requested.
In the dream that just woke me, you said,
“The place is practically next door.”
I asked you to take me there.
We’d always planned to go together to the cemetery
where the arching stones are marked − touched − shaped
by the characters of your ancestral tongue.
What a difference one letter makes.
From here to There
you have gone. Plans change.
evening
Your flesh is underground. I heard
the service was beautiful, and all your children
were there. Still, my body rebels against
this radical change in reality. The ache is whole,
no limb untouched by it. The blood pools in the feet,
taking its leaden time to travel to the head. The heart
flutters fast against ribs. Speech comes only
with the greatest of effort. My injured left foot is on fire.
My eyes are scratchy-dry. My body will not, will not let them cry.
*
May the Shiv’a candle make this newly empty space burn bright,
bright and silver as the full moon in the black black sky,
bright as shone your radiant blue-eyed being,
ever reaching, ever teaching, ever touching so deeply
so many
lives.
*******
Image and Text, Copyright Ysabel de la Rosa, All rights reserved.
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