DiaBLOGue

Her body was cold, nearly 
frigid in the room 
set aside for such matters. 

When dawn comes this early, 
a slice of sky visible from my bed 
textures waking. Today’s thin layers clabber 
white . . .

A day of long-walked silences, 
waterless red gullies and hard-rock 
plateaus. We’ve met few on the trails 
this summer past my father’s dying. 

In the dim green 
I can’t tell what I’m remembering, 
or what’s been handed down. . . .

A cold spell 
for my desecration 
slipped upward from your grave. 

Spring again. 
The browns, the ochre, 
the brittle death of fall and winter 
recast in transcendent greens— 
            vibrant, transparent, resurgent. 

A girl I’ve never met meets me at the door, 
whines at my leg until I hold her. Thin arms, 
thin mouth, a sour smell I overlook while fetching 
crayons, glue sticks, snacks. She lifts her dress, 
exposes the top of her baggy white tights, looks at me.
We both sing: “Faith is knowing the sun will rise…”
I sit next to her, tap her hands, whisper no.