To ease death we say

to ease death we say, all sorts of things
valid or just left there in the space that has been opened

to ease death we say
the baby was incomplete

the heart couldn't function anymore
fractured around its edges

to ease death we say
it was a disappearance

journey completed
from the East to the West

to ease death we say
the loved ones are gathered

somewhere that's boundless
maybe this is how the verbs break in on us

to ease death
regardless of what we say

waiting in a vacant time, lets us expand
into easier versions of the same death.

Grandpa on the chair

Like a guard lion I sit
near the window that looks out
you sit before me on the street
holding all the dignity in the crook of your arms

little fingers over the pedals and you roll
into the direction that goes outward
there are chairs that have been made for us
to wear them even if they fall upon us

but he was steady, the mark of youth
sitting directly like a carried gift
a boy in your lap, yellow haired
smiling as you carried him

like a vessel sailing toward the sea
you move swiftly enchantment
against a wind that rejects your bones
this is the love of a grandparent, it lifts outside of the waves.

another anniversary for the ones gone

for T, twenty years onward 

Soft blue eyes,
pale to the understanding

a little girl
with her hand in yours

jumping over a moving stream
picking up the clothes for toys

because she would not have know
motherhood then, like she does now

soft blue eyes
never letting her cry

because tears are made with our most precious
pain, that reverberates

when she thinks of you
away from your city

your old bones now,
tired to the call of a voice

tender to the fact that you
her protection is the first true father

she's ever had.