Needs editing, but so do I:
I wake up trying to put you
together again. I can’t look
at what I can’t imagine
or can as I pretend to open
an instruction manual
that tells my hands how
to recreate your hands, chest,
arms, skull, the bright face
I can’t see dimmed
even in death. Body split
open is not fruit or seed
or even mulch, but presence
of blood and being
whose spirit wanders--
even your killer wants
you not to wander
though she has her reasons--
through bardos, down streets,
before altars, bead to bead
as mantras repeat
spirit’s recipes for rising
resting filling air with yeasty
smell, like the smoke on
the lawn that rose as presences
into hapu`u ferns and the o`hia
lehua perking up for a lover
built of wood, red pom pom
(you’d been a cheerleader!)
lit against the gnarled bark
signal to your being here
in the forest for the trees
not finding any but signs
the rusted ones: Men Working
propped against a tree stump
or No Trespassing dissolving
into rain’s constancy
or your post-it notes to re-
mind you of Impermanence,
and that no one will applaud
you until death has softened
all our hard edges.
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