What’s Left

How often now, raging weeping for the days

love gives then takes away, takes from you

the slightly chapped hand laid on the one

you’re pointing at a tree, and the voice

that breathes coffeeberry bush into your mouth.  

The finger that taps and feathers your ear

but the giggle’s gone before you turn around.

The sandalwood scent hanging in the room,

the auburn strand like a flaw in the porcelain,

the off-course nail clipping in the carpet.

The days eat into your stomach, knife you

with longing for relief from love

that you cannot leave or leave alone,

from its rings of fire where you won’t

burn down to ash or be transformed.

You become them, and they keep burning

and have a coffeeberry voice.

           Listen how

                     their rhymes sing

                               the little deaths you live.