Sister when I look at you
I see our Mother’s face
when I speak
I hear her voice
and I know we have more of her
than any of the things she left behind.
Nothing is absolutely lost
like a thrifty housewife
time keeps every scrap
to use and reuse
each atom danced out
again and again
cards sorted and resorted
through a million hands
each slap and shuffle
a new chance
in the old and endless game
whose rules we only faintly
understand

All I have to do
is take one step back
lift my hand from yours
turn the page close the door
and it all vanishes
I don’t have the faith
to sustain anything
not close enough to touch
so bereavement is an old habit
familiar and almost comfortable
like the words to the prayers
the nuns taught us
so sad and beautiful
	Tantum ergo
	Sacramentum
we wore them like a crown
singing the past into a future
too strange and terrible
for such old songs
that we still carry with us
though we no longer sing

Once again I catch my foot
in darkness’ hem
and fall into the sudden hole
that opens up beneath me.
The even surface of the street
softens
loose as sand.
It can’t keep me
thick and slow
dense as stone
tearing through the layers
of a world sublimated
tissue thin
as fog dissolving
in the hot sun.
And there’s nothing
to hold on to
nothing to stop me
on my way down
to an end I can’t imagine
where the air is thick and dark
and every atom so
compounded
there is no room
for even one electron’s
living dance.