Born. Like a fieldmouse in a shoebox. A buried microphone.
I wrote your name, which finally had a body, with your mother’s leftover
hair along the shower wall. The first & only horror story. I guess
it’s Groundhog Day in October again. Doesn’t matter, but I keep
imagining your first peewee game, your first rabbit costume, your worst
self being entirely forgivable. Now that you finally have a shape
to miss, a dead yawn the size of a single parenthesis, half a marriage.
We’ve been saving our issues for when you left for college or abroad.
Maybe that was the kicker that didn’t kick. Maybe it’s my fault.
I want you to know that your siblings will remember you. They will not
have your name. When I dream these days it’s in television static.
I slap the antennae of my brain & every once in a while a face appears.
I can’t tell if it’s you or the alien of your in-between existence. If the heart
is both verb & noun, you lived a real life. Only time can be forgotten.